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SC.ARC. H 764 c
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
PEABODY MUSEUM OF AMERICAN
ARCHAEOLOGY AND ETHNOLOGY
(Gift ot)
L. C. Jones
R^ivrf March 31, 1937
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3>
//
THE CIVILISATION OF SWEDEN
HEATHEN TIMES
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r./"-
LAPLAND ■■ TESTER- "i
JEMTLAND
iANGERMAMLAHD/
GULF
OF
f HELSIKG- <^ BOTHNIA
'-■: lAND
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THE
CIVILISATION OF SWEDEN
IN HEATHEN TIMES
OSCAR MONTELIUS, Ph.D.
EEV. F. H. WOODS, E.D.
ruar bJ Ckolfoiil St ftlrr
WrrR MAP ADD TWO BUKDBBB AND FIVE ILLVSTIUTIOKS
ftonDon
MACMILLAN AND CO.
AND NEW YOBK
1888
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Sc.Ar<L. M 764^^
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TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.
The name of Dr. Monteliua is too well known in
archsDological circles to make any apology for trans-
lating such a work as this necessary.
The book describes the early progress of Swedish
civilisation fi-om a time some thousands of years anterior
to history, if by that term is meant only what depends
upon written documents. But, as the writer shows, the
evidence of history in this limited sense is often far
less trustworthy than that on which the antiquary
relics. The latter has at least the advantage of being
in all cases contemporary, and therefore less liable to
perversion. But its chief value is that it helps to throw
light upon periods of man's development on which
history is altogether silent, and of which we have there-
fore no sources of information. It is true that it deals
directly with the progress of one particular people ; but
all archeeulogy tends to show that there has been a
remarkably similar process of development, not only
among European peoples, but among all races of the
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rl TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.
world. It follows that a clear and succinct account of
the progress of any one people helps to give us a clear
notion of the successive stages of civilisation through
which all races have passed. For Englishmen the work
is likely to have a special interest, partly from the close
relationship between the Swedish and English nation-
alities, but still more because of the direct influence of
the Scandinavian races upon the history of England
from the time when the Northmen first harried our
coasts.
The second edition of this work was published in
Swedish in 1878, but afterwards appeared in 1885 in
a much enlarged German translation, with many addi-
tional plates. The present edition contains all the
additional matter incorporated in the German trans-
lation ; but besides this the author has again made
many important additions and introduced several new
plates. It thus embodies the results of researches made
since 1885 down to the current year (1888). The proof-
sheets have been revised throughout by the author,
whose kindness and enthusiasm have lightened the work
of translation, and deepened the interest which work in
a subject of this kind can hardly fail to excite. The
translator has, with the author's consent, ventured to
add a few references or explanations which he felt likely
to be of interest to an English reader. These are
inclosed in square brackets, usually in the form of foot-
notes. He has made frequent reference especially to
the Corpus Pocticiim Borealc of Dr. Vigfusson and Mr.
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TRANSISTOR'S PREFACE. vii
Powell, whose work he has found of great value in
enabling him to give a more accurate rendering of
quotations from Icelandic poems. He bega also to take
this opportunity of acknowledging his indebtedness to
Dr. Evans, whose great work on the Bronze Age ' has
supplied him with many technical terms. WhUe
avoiding what seemed an unnecessary use of technical
language, he has in general adopted expressions most
frequently used by English archseologists. In the
translation of gdnggrifter by " passage-graves " he has
purposely departed from this rule, because the usual
English term, "gallery-graves," to say nothing of its
uncouth sound, seemed to express a wrong idea. The
word " gallery " su^ests to his mind something of the
nature of a gallery in a theatre or a church, and to be
little suited to express the simple underground passage
which formed part of the graves of this description.
* Thi Aneitnt Brome ImpUmenU.Weapvna, and OmaDtenti qf Great
Britain and Ireland: LoDdoc, 1861.
UiiALFOMT St. Peter Vicaraoe,
October ith, 1888.
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CONTENTS.
Imiboductiom I
CHAPTER I.
Thb Stohi Aoe 7
CHAPTER II.
Thb Bkohzb Ask 42
CHAPTER III.
The Iboh Aqe 89
A. Tei First Pakt OF THE EarlibeIeon AoE 91
B. ThbSbcohd Pabtoptub Earuer Iroh AoE 97
C. Tas First Part op tbk Ijater Iron Age ISS
D. TflE Second Part or the Later Iron Age, or the Viking
Period 142
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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
1. Flint tool of the earLer Stone Age
2. „ „ „
3. Hammering-pebble
4. Section of a haft-hole in Btone aie
5. Section of a half- fin ielied liaft-hole
6. Aie-head of greenstoae, with liole partly bored
7. Flint arrow-head
8. Small gouge, polished
9. Unpolished flint-ajte
10. Polished grindatone
1 1. Flint epear-bcad
12. Flint-scraper
13. Flint knife
I'L Stone axe with haft-hule
1 S. Lunate Aist saw
IC. Flint dagger
17. Plan of a Lap dwelling {i)aiHmt) at Komagfjord in North Fit
mark, near Hammcrfest
18. Stone axe with wooden handle found in an £ngli»li bog . . .
19. Flintaxc showing marks where the liaft was fastened . . , .
£0. Stone aie with wooden handle from New Caledonia . . . . .
21. Flint scraper
22. Stone axe with liaft-holo
23. „ .,
S4. Amber bead
25. Bone arrow-head with Hakca of Hint U-t in on the sides . . . .
20. Bone fiali-hook
27. Stone ban dm ill
28. South African hondmill in use
2!>. .Clay hanging-cauldron
30. Animal figure on a horn axe
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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
31. Dolmen at Haga, on the iaiand of Crust 30
32. Two passage-graTea at Luttra 31
33. Plan of a paaaage-gnve near Falkopimg 32
34. Stone cirt near Skottened 33
35. Stone ciet near Earlebj 34
36. Plan of the atone ciat deacribed in Fig. 3& 35
37. Offering-stone 36
36. Spear-head of slate 38
39. Knife of dAtts 38
40. Maauve bronze axe with haft-hole 44
41. Bronze daggei with handle of the game material 44
42. Handle of dagger (Fig. 41) as aeen &om the top 44
43L Lower part of the ferrule of a bronze spear-head 44
44. Fibula of bronze 44
45. Bronze knife 45
46. End of a large bronze collar 45
47. Upper part of die blade of a bronze sword 45
48. Part of the bottom of a golden bowl 45
49; Stone moold for casting fonr bronze saws like that in Fig. 50 . 49
50. Bronze saw 49
51. Bronze ranner with four jets BO
52. Bronze axe, of thin plates over clay core S2
53. A celt (not socketed) fastened to the haft from a rock-carving
of the Bronze Age 51
54. Bronze socketed celt with wooden haft, found in a salt-mine at
HaLlein is Austria 55
55. Egifptian bronze celt with wooden handle 55
56. Bronze celt (not socketed) 66
57. „ „ 56
58. Bronze celt (socketed) 56
59. Gold tweezers 66
eO. Bronze button 56
61. Spiral finger-ring of a doable gold wire 56
62. Gold bracelet 57
63. Bronze torque 57
64. Spiral bronze bracelet 57
65. Bronze ornament with inlaid lesin on the knob 58
66. Piece of woollen stuff of the BnnKk: Age 59
67. Tree-coffin of the Bronze Age, showing the body of a man
wrapped in a woollen mantle, with the head towards the left 59
68. Woman's woollen dress, from Bomm-Eahoi 61
69. Bronze jifraio 61 '
70. Bronze brooch 64
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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. xiii
7L Bronze comb, with all tlie teedi broken off Ca
72, Brnnze torque 65
73, Bronze ehield with rijKmttt ismanieiiU, of foreign woTkraanehip 66
74, Bronze aword 68
76. Bronze dagger with horn handle 68
76. Iieather sheatb with bronze chape for dagger 68
77. Bronze apear-head 68
T8. Bronze sword with handle of the lame material, of foreign
workmanship 68
79. Plough from a iwik-carving at Tcgneby 71
80. Bionze eickle 71
> Pari* of a bronze aet of haniet<i .
84.' 1
Boats from rock-earrings in BuhnclSn 73
87. Rock-cairiDg near Backa 74
88. Bock carving in Lukebei^ in Bohuelan 7f>
89. One of the stones of the grave at Eivik 76
90. Sword on a rock carving at Ekeaaberg 77
91. Diminntive car wbich probably once carried a sacrificial vessel
as here traced 79
92 Gold vessel 81
93. Large bronze vase found at Hedeski^a 8S
94. Cover to bronie-vessel 83
93. Bronze banging- vessel 83
96. Section of a barrow at Dommcstorp in South Holland .... 85
97. Burial-sm with handle 86
98. Bronze brooch with an iron pin 92
99. Bronze collar 92
100. Bronze collar with a joint 92
101. Iron sword in a sheath of the some metal 93
lOS. Iron knife 93
103. liftaJUHila 93
104. Bronze ;!(ala 93
105. Bronze collar, with n joint 94
106. Iron plate for belt (I) overlaid ffiUi bronze OS
107. Bronze coUar 95
108. Boman silver coin (denarius) 98
109. Bronze vessel dedicated to Apollo Grannns, of Bomon work-
manship 100
110. Part of an iron coat of mail 101
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xiv LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
111. Koman bronze BUtnette 102
112. Qlasa betiker, of RoiDui workmanship 103
113. Iron eword with maker'n mark 1D4
114. Spiral gold bracelet 105
115. A bora with bronze mountingig 107
116. Korlhem warrior of about 300 a.d. 109
117. J'liKia of silver-gilt 110
118. Bronze buckle, overlaid with sUver-gilt and aet with coloured
glass 110
119. Gold ring Ill
120. Gold pendant Ill
121. Silver cap partly gilded 112
122. Wooden bucket with bronze platings 113
123. Earthenware ewer 114
124. Boat for 14 pairs of oara, found at Nfdam in South Jutland , 116
125. Bonic stone at Tannin in Bohaalan 120
126. Cemeterj near Qrebf in Bohuslan 123
127. Roman gold coin (solidas) 125
128. Gold collar 12fl
129. Gold plate of a ewoid-obeath 127
130. Gold collar with joint 128
131. Gold brocteate with a list of runes 130
132. Gold bracteate 130
133. Gold finger-ring with one end broken off 130
131. Gold bracteate, a " barbarian " copj of a Roman coin .... 130
135. Fibula of silver-gilt 132
136. Buckle of silver-gilt 133
137. Reverse aide of Fig. 136 134
138. Upper part of an iron sword with bilt of gilded bronze. The
triangular pommel is of gold inlaid with garnets 135
139. Oraament of gilded bronze 136
140l a plate of gilded bronze 136
141. Upper put of an iron sword with bilt of gilded bronze . . . 137
142. Boss of a shield made of iron with bronze plating 138
143. Chape of gilded bronze 139
144. Part of a helmet made of iron overlaid with bronze 140
145. Small oval ^iu2a of gilded bronze 141
146. Bronze key 152
147. Glaascup 154
148. Silver pendant 155
149. Spoon made of elk-hom 156
150. Piece of a woollen mantle with embroidery 158
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UST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. av
152. A loom Item the Farii lelea 160
153. BiODze plate with fignicB in relief 162
154. Oval bronze brooch 163
155. Rotmd brouze brooch 164
156. Round rilver brooch 164
157. Silver brooch 165
158. Bronze brooch of ailver-gilt 166
158. Bronze ^iula (two viewa) 167
160. Ring-ahaped bronze brooch 167
161. Solid rilver bracelet 168
168. Twisted silver bracelet 169
>SUTerbi
168. Silver pendant 169
169. „ „ 169
170. Iron hammer 170
171. Iron pincers 170
172. Iroadcltle 174
173. Iron axe 180
174. Upper part of a two-edged iron swoid 181
175. Part of a damaaked gword-blade 182
176. Grave-stone with carvings and mnia inscription, from TJangvide 183
177. A Northman's ship from the end of the eleventh century, taken
from the Bayeux tapeatrj 184
178. An oak ship found in the barrow at Tune in Sonth Norway . . 185
179. Viking-ship (M/ound at Qokstad, in South Norway 180
18a The Ookstad ship restored 187
181. Anglo-Saxon silver coin of King ^thelreed 189
182. Earliest Swedisb silver coin strack for Olaf Skotkonnng ... 189
183: Marble lion with ronic imcTiption, or^^inally in the Pitwus, now
at Venice. Height 9 ft 190
184 Arabic silver coin (dirhem) struck at Samarcand in a.d. 903 . . 191
186. German silver coin 192
186. Fiur of scales made of bronze 193
187. Iron weight plated with bronze 193
188. Iron stirmp 104
189. Bronze buckle 195
190. Bronze plate 196
191. Gilded bronze plate that probably originally surroonded the foot
of a drinking vessel 196
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LIST OF ILLl'STRATIONS.
BiODie brooch 197
Bronze broocli, of the form of an animal'i bead 107
Back of Fig. 193, witb a runic inscription 197
Two bronze bnckles united with chains 198
Gold bracteate 199
The"ItanisiuidBbetg'' with the" Sigaid-carving" ....... SOI
Silver "Thor'a hammer" S02
Bartow from the Viking Period 204
QraTe-stones arranged in the fonn of a diip ; near Blomaholm in
Bohuslan 806
Plan of Btonea as arranged in Fig. SOO S07
Banow with "banta-atone" near Oodestad in Halland .... 909
Rnnic-stone near Rok church in Oster-Ootland Sll
Ranic-stone at Viggbj in Upland, T ft. high 21 2
Ronic-stone near Vik in Upland SIS
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ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVILISATION.
INTRODUCTION,
The history of the earliest iuhabitauls of the North
was till about fifty years ago shrouded in obscurity. It
was not till thea that aDtiquarians began generally to
recognize that the antiquities which are dug up from
time to time, and the barrows aod stone monuments
which still abound throughout the country, do not all
belong to that part of heathen times which immedi-
ately preceded the introduction of Christianity, and of
which the Icelandic sagas relate. When Ansgar first
came to Sweden in the ninth century, the use of iron
was universal in the country, and had been so for a long
time. A careful investigation of the antiquities has
shown however that before that period, now usually
known as the Iron Age, there was another, when iron
was altogether unknown, in which weapons and tools
were made of bronze, a mixture of copper and tin.
This period, called the Bronze Age, had, as well as the
Iron Age, continued for many centuries. But before the
beginning of the Bronze Age Sweden had for a very
long time been inhabited by people who lived in entire
% B
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2 ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVILISATION.
ignorance of the use of the metals, and were therefore
compelled to make their instnimeuts and weapons of
such materials as stone, horn, bone, and wood. This
last period is known therefore as the Stone Age.
This division of heathen times in the North into three
great periods waa already made and published as long
ago 83 the last century, but it was not till 1830-40 that
it had any special importance in antiquarian researches.
The honour of developing a scientific system based upon
this triple division — a work so important for gaining an
insight into the earliest condition of the whole human
race — belongs to the savants of the North. The first
place among them is occupied by Councillor Christian
Jilrgensen Thomsen (died 1865), to whose labours we
are mainly indebted for the celebrated Museum of
Northern Antiquities in Copenhagen. Next to him we
must place as the founders of the prehistoric archaeology
of the north Pi-ofessor Sven Nilsson of Lund (died 1 883),^
and Chamberlain J. J. A. Worsaae (died 1885). Thom-
sen 's system was soon taken up by the Royal Antiquary
Bror Emil Hildebrand (died 1884), who did the greatest
service by his development of the National Historical
Museum at Stockholm. The "three-age-system" was
also quickly adopted in almost every other eountrj'.
The attack long made against it in Germany may now
be regarded as ceased, and the correctness of this
division has been generally recognized even in that
countr}'.
^ The first edition of hia epoch-making work Skandinavieka Norderit
UrinvStnare appeared in 1838-43, the second in 1862-6. An English
tranglalion of this work, with a preface by Sir John Lubbock, was
published in 1868 under the title T/ie Primitive Infiabitants of
Scandinavia.
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INTRODUCTION, 3
The thousands of finds which Jiave come to our know-
ledge since this system was published, have not only
proved in a striking manner that the outline of the
earliest history of Northern culture which antiquarians
endeavoured to draw more than fifty years ago was
correct, but have also opened a new and wide field for
farther research. We can now form avery clear idea of the
circumstances Under which the first settlers in our land
lived, and we can follow, step by step, the slow but sure
development whereby the inhabitants of Sweden, once a
horde of savages, have reached their present condition.
It is true that we meet with no line of kings, no
heroic names dating from these earliest times. But is
not the knowledge of the people's life, and of the pro-
gress of their culture, of more worth than the names of
saga heroes 1 And ought we not to give more credence
to the contemporary, irrefutable witnesses to which alone
archeology now listens, than to the poetical stories
which for centuries were preserved only in the mcmorj-
of skalds ?
It might seem unnecessary at present to give any
special proof of the correctness of this threefold division
of heathen times in the North, inasmuch as the whole
account we shall give may be regarded as proving it.
But as the present position oi Northern arcliseology
depends so peculiarly upon this division, wc shall now
point out some circumstances which show how well
grounded the opinion is, at least so far as Scandinavia
is concerned.
That there was a time when all metals were entirely
unknown is clearly seen from the many large finds and
the hundreds of remarkable graves containing numerous
relics of stone, hone, &c., but no trace of metal. Tliat
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4 ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVILISATION.
there was another period when the use of bronze, but
not of iron, was known, is equally clear from the large
number of boards and graves which contain weapons,
ornaments, &c., of bronze, but no trace of iron ; while on
the other band bronze implements are hardly ever found
with those of iron. That there was a third period in
heathen times when iron was in general use we can see
by the 6rst glance at any large collection of antiquities.
From this it follows of necessity that the earliest history
of Northern culture — the time antecedent to the estab-
lishment of Christianity — actually embraces the three
great periods which derive their names from the most
important material in use during each of them.
And there can hardly be any doubt of the order in
which these periods followed each other. That the
Stone Age must be older than the Bronze Age is self-
evident, and is further proved by the fact that we
often find graves of the Bronze Age in the upper part
of barrows which have been raised over a grave chamber
of the Stone Age which usually lies at the bottom in
tlie centre of the barrow, while the converse has never
occurred. And our earliest sources of history which
throw light on the conditions of life during the last part
of heathen times point only to a period when iron was
in general use. It follows therefore that the Iron Age
must be the last of these three periods.
How far the beginning of each period coincides with
the appearance of a new race which subdued the earlier
settlers in the country, is a further question which we
must for the present distinguish from that which con-
cerns only the order in which the several heathen
periods followed each other.
Before we now make an attempt to set before
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TNTRODUCTION. 5
our readera a picture of the life in Sweden during
heathen times, we must observe that if that picture
shall prove imperfect and blurred, it ie partly perhaps
owing to the insuflSciency of our sources of information
about a period so wanting in written historical materials.
It is doubtless true, and should be gladly acknowledged,
that we have discovered much richer documents dating
from heathen times than we had any right to expect ;
but by far the majority of the antiquities preserved to
our own day are naturally works of stone, metals, and the
like, while it ia ^nly by an exceptional conjunction of
specially favourable conditions that such perishable ma-
terials as wood, bone, leather, cloth, &c. , have been able to
survive. It follows that we must have a very imperfect
knowledge of furniture, stuffs, and clothes made out of
such materials ; and yet these formed incomparably the
greater part of the belongings of the heathen Northmen.
But even of metal and stone objects used in those
days our knowledge is very imperfect. Only a small
part of what once existed was buried in the ground ;
only a part of what was buried baa escaped the destroy-
ing hand of time ; of this part all has not yet come to
light again ; and we know only too well how little of
what has come to light has been of any service for our
science. Almost all the finds of past centuries have
disappeared without a trace, and even much of what
has been discovered in the present centuiy has been
destroyed.
We can easily realize the importance of these facts if
we imagine that an antiquarian some thousand or two
thousand years hence should attempt to represent our
own manner of life, and yet had scarcely any other
material for the purpose beyond the verdigrised and
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C ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVIUSATION.
rusty remains of our metal works, and so could not
complete the picture of the nineteenth century by the
help of works of literature and art. This comparison
shows how cautious we should be in our attempt to
trace the civilisation of heathen times, the earliest part
of which was several thousand years before our day.
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CHAPTER I.
THE STONE AQE.
{To about B.C. 1500.)
How loug ajjo Sweden was inhabited we camot yet
decide, even within a thousapd years. A number ol"
finds have shown, it is true, that the south part of
Scandinavia was peopled far earlier than was formerly
su pposed./ liut all we can do is to fix a point of time
before which we can hardly suppose any settlement to
have been made, namely, the end of the Glacial Period.
So long as the Scandinavian peninsula was covered by
one enormous mass of ice, just as the greater part of
Greenland is at the present day, population was almost
impossible, and no traces of men have been found
in the country which are earlier than the end of this
period./
On the other hand several finds have shown that
Denmark and the most southerly part of Sweden were
already inhabited by a people of the Stone Age at a time
when firs were still the prevailing trees in those countries.
For instance, bones of the capercailzie, a bird which only
lives in fir woods, have been discovered in finds belong-
ing indisputably to the Stone Age in Denmark. We
cannot it is ti-ue determine, within a hundred or even
/
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8 ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVILISATION. [cuap.
a thousand years, how old these finds are ; but that they
must belong to a very remote period ia shown by the
thorough change in the flora and fauna which the
country has since undergone. The forests of fir-trees
died out, and made way for great forests of oaks, which
covered the land, till they in their turn succumbed to
the now prevailing beech woods.
The earliest traces of human remains yet known iu
Sweden are some large and very rough flint tools
(Guide, Fig. 28), similar to what are met with in
England and other countries in finds of the earliest
Stone Age.
Traces of population in the North at a somewhat later,
but still very early, date arc found in the numerous
Danish " kitchen-middens " (kjokkenmoddivger) or " re-
fuse heaps" {afskrddeshogar) , which for some time past
have been the otjeet of thorough investigation. These
are found along the sea-coasts, and consist of, some-
times enormous, collections of the shells of oysters and
other shell-fish still used for food at the present day.
We also find in them bones of fish, birds, wild boar, red
and fallow deer, ure-ox, and other wild animals,^ but
of only one domestic animal — the dog. The larger bones
are usually found split open for the sake of the marrow.
Among these relics of food materials we find also the
fireplaces still charred and covered with ashes, and
further a number of ill-hewn, unpolished flint tools, bits
of coarse earthenware, instruments of bone and horn,
&c. In the places where these "kitchen-middens" are
found it is clear that men must have lived in far distant
1 No traces of reindeer, which duriog a part of the Stone Age
lived together with men in Belgium uid France, have been met with
in tho D.iniEh " kitchen- middens."
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1.] THE STONE AGE. n
times : the shells, the bones, and the fireplaces are relics
of their meals.
"Kitchen-middens" of precisely the same kind have
been found in many other parts of the world, as, for
example, in Terra del Fuego in the extreme south of
FiQ. 2.— Flint tool of
the earlier Stone
Age. Sk. i.
Fig. 1.— Flint tool of the
earlier Stono Age.
8k. J.
America, where the rude natives still live in much the
same way as the earliest inhabitants of the North did
several thousand years ago.
No " kitehen-middens " belonging to the Stone Age '
have been hitherto discovered in Sweden ; -but we may
^ Both in Sweden and in other countries traces of meals — refuse-
heaps — have been found very much like, the Danish " kitchen-
luiddens," but they «re later than the Stone Age.
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10 ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVILISATION. [chap.
be quite sure that tlie most southern part of this
country was inhabited at the time to which these belong,
because several rough flint tools have been found there,
in Skilne especial!}', exactly resembling those usual in
t he " kit(.-hen-middeDS " (see Fi^?>. I and 2).
/The Danish " kitchen-middens," and the finds corre-_
spending to them, muHt be regarded as ueiougmg to au
earlier part ul the Htone Age than those graves known
as " dolmens" {^U'uJomr) and "passage-graves" (gainj-
qnf/i'A. of wWu-h we shall soon speak. Of this v.-e_
may give the follo wing. J^'uofe:- ^!
ll. In the "kitchen-middens" we find nu truces of .
1 ...L ..I-',. (.',."' i! .,1 TTt'..,. ' ii,, ,1, ■''.■m., tCT
I any oilier domestic animal than tlic ilog, while the
I people of the pa ssji^e-CTuves had all the , most im^
VjKirtaiit t-lonicstie animals of the pre sent day .
^
\2. The flint instruments found in the " kitehei
middens " arc generally mueh coarser than those which
occur iu the graves. They arc of fvltogether different
and much simpler forms, and not polished ; the axes and
chisels, well polished on all sides, which are so numerous
in the graves, have never been met with in the " kitchen-
middeu.s." Neither do we find in tlie latter any of the
well-hewn spear-heads or arrow-heads of flint (comp.
Figs. 7, 1 1). i^ueh things as chips and the like, incidental
to the making of stone tools, and the simple flint flakes
used for knives, and the rude flint scrapers are, as we
mi;iht have expecte d, c omm on to f inds of cvcr^'' per iod. .
within the Stone A^c./
If remains of the earlier Stune Age are scanty in
Sweden, wo have on the contrary very abundant relics
of its later pjirt. With the exception of Denmark, and
possibly that part of North Germany of which the
antiquities belonging to the Stone and Bronze Ages are
D,g,,z.dbvCOOgle
I.] THE STONE AGE. 11
almost exactly like those of Scandinavia, there is prob-
ably no European land which can show such rich and
beautiful relics from the later Stone Age as the southern
part of Sweden.
■ Before we attempt to give any description of what is
now known of primitive Swedish civilisation during the
Stone Age, it would be as well first to show how it was
possible out of the hard flint — the most important
material of the time for weapons and tools — to pre-
pare such wonderfully fine works without the help of
metal.
Professor Nilsson, about fifty years ago, pointed out
that flint could be easily worked with stone, and made
drawings of some pebbles which he supposed to have
been used for such a purpose. They had caught his
attention because, as a boy when out shooting, he had
often prepared his gun-flints with a stone picked up
from the field.
Confirmations of Professor Nilsson 's opinion have not
been wanting. Some time ago an Englishman came
across an Indian tribe in California, which still used
stone implementa. The Englishman was acquainted
with the objects from the Stone Age found in Europe,
but thought that they were prepared with tools of
hardened copper. He now met with one of the arrow-
head makers belonging to the tribe, and requested to
be allowed to see some proof of his skill. The Indian
sat down, laid a smooth stone on his knee, took in one
hand a piece of agate, in the other a piece of obsidian,
a species of stone which is used by the natives of
America much as flint was by those of Europe. With
one stroke of the agate he split the piece of obsidian in
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12 ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVILISATION. [chap.
two, and with a second against the new surface thus
made, he struck oft' a flake a third of an inch thick.
This he took between his finger and thumb, held it
against the stone anvil which lay on his knee, and gave
it repeated blows with the agate, each blow taking oflFa
minute chip. By degrees the piece of obsidian received
a definite shape, and in a little more than au hour's
time he had completed an arrow-head which was more
than an inch long.
"We know that not very long ago flint was used iu
preparing gun-locks and strike-a -lights in England and
France. Iron hammers were
then employed, but experience
clearly shows that a common
sea-worn pebble may be used
with success. Besides, both in
the North and in other lands,
stones have been found which
were obviously used in the
Stone Age as chippiug-stones in
the preparation of flint. Sometimes they made small,
round cup-shaped holes in the stone in order to secure a
finncr grip for the fingers (see Fig. 3).
The long and narrow barbs in the fine arrowheads
(Fig. 7), and such regular serratures as we find for
example in Fig, If), were obtained probably by the
stroke or ]>ressure of a bone tool like those used- for
the same purpose by several American tribes.
Knives, daggers, spear-heads and arrow-head.'*, scrapers
and other fiiut instruments of this kind, were only chipped
and never ground, at least not at the edge. Many other
stone implements however, especially axes and chisels, ,
were ground, and we have still remaining a large
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i] THE STONE AGE. 13
number of grindatonea used for this purpose. They
are most usually either very large blocks of sandstone
with oue or more flat sides, or else thick pieces of a
similar material shaped much like a club and rounded
off ftt the two ends (see Fig. 10). Upon the former the
flint axes (Fig. 9) and the broader chisels were ground ;
upon the latter narrow chisels, like that given in
Fig. 8, and other small tools. By constant use on all
its sides a grindstone of this sort became very narrow in
the middle, and it is not surprising that it has some-
times been mistaken by an unpractised eye for the
petrified bone of some a nimal of ancient tim es.
IMany axes oi greenstone and similar kinds of stone,
have a hole borea lor tne nait. liut this is never tlie'
case with feint axes, because the hardness and bnttieness ;
,of the material made boring impossible./
For a long time it was uncertain how it was possible '
to obtain such holes in the stone axes without a metal
borer. Many regarded it as impossible, but the experi-
ments of later yeai-s have proved its feasibility beyond a
doubt. An American arehseologist with a wooden stick,
sand, and water, actually succeeded in boring through a
stone so hard that a good penknife could not make a
scratch on its surface, but only left tho shiniog mark of
tlie metal. The stick wa.s pressed hard against the
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ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVIUSATION.
rici. 7.— Flint
m 6.— Ajt-head of
Kreciiatone, with holi;
psrtly bon-il. Boh. J.
Fio, 10.— Polisliedgrinilatone. BUk. J.
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THE STONB ARE.
Fio. n.— Flint
Fro. IG.^LDnats flin
.D,gnz.dbvG00gle
IC ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVILISATION. [chai-.
Stone, and was continually turned round with great
rapidity. In this way the grains of sand were forced
into the lower end of the stick, and by slow degrees
wore a hole in the stone. The boring was begun from
both sides of the stone. At first holes were formed on
either side, which, as the boring continued, tapered
more and more to a point. When at last the thin wall
which divided tbem was broken t hrouf;h, the y we re like_
two cones placed point to point. /kraon^ the stone axes^
tound in Sweden there are many with their haft holes
unfinished. Id their different degrees of completion
they represent exactly the s fvfirajl atagfa ip t he work qL
boring just describ ed (flee Fig. 4)f
[Other stone axes with Uiitinisbed haft-holos found in
Sweden seem however to have been bored in a difierent
manner. In the middle of the hole is left a round "core
so to speak, of stone tapering upwards, as seen in the
transverse section in Fig. 5. It was long supposed that
such a hole must have been produced with a cylindrical
metal borer ; but Professor Keller at Zurich, celebrated
for his excellent work on the Swiss lake-dwellings, bored
similar holes in some stone axes though using only sand,
wfltp.r , and a hollow b one, or a cylin der of ' '"'■" ^r wr""^
The hole so bored had, belore it was completed, an ap-
pearance exactlj' like that seen in Fig. 6. Even in
this case it was of course the aand which really produced
the hole. This method is far less tedious than the first,
because it is not necessary to rub away all the stone
out of the hole, but only the ring round the central
projection.
All this shows that the ancient implements of the
Stone Age found in Sweden were, almost without an
exception, made in that country. Besides this, several
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I.] THE STONE AGE. 17
places have been discovered in Sweden where the
manufacture of flint implements during thia Age took
place. These places are covered
with a number of flint chips,
works which are half-prepared
or which have been damaged in
making, chipping-atones, grind-
stones, and the like. Such
" workshops " are found in the
south as far north as Bohuslan,
but mostly in Skane, where good
flint is easily procured;
The Northmen of the later
Stone Age bad raised themselves
so much above the state of
savages, that they not only made
such objects as were indispens-
able for the neccaaaries of life,
but took no little pains to have
them as ornamental as possible.
We see this, not to mention
other proofs, in the fact that
the axes and chisels are usually
carefully ground not only at the
edge, but over the whole surface
{Figs. 8, 19). We have a beau-
tiful example of the taste shown
by the people of the Stone fio. is.— Flint dagger, st. j.
Age in the flint dagger de-
scribed in Fig. 16 and many other objects of a airailar
kind.
The long, narrow spearheads of flint bear witness to
the extraordinary skill with which the flint was worked ;
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ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVILISATION.
[tUAP.
especially wheu we consider that they were not dcliber.
ately ground, but chipped with a boldness which was
only surpassed by the accuracy with which the blows
with the stone hammer were made. The least false
stroke or the slightest shake of the hand would have
sufficed to destroy the whole work — work which our own
age, with its skill so highly developed in many other
ways, would be unable to produce.
The character of the dwellings during tlie Stone Age
is not at present known, nor can it be certainly proved
by an3-thing yet discovered. But we may well con-
jecture that they were either tents made of hides, like
the Lap huts, or simple hovels built of wood, stones and
turf. The ruins of the lake-dwellings of Switzerland
sliow that in that country the homes of the Stone Age
were wooden huts.
/■ProlessorJNilsson has called attention to the undeniabTe"
re semblance in form between the Scandinavian passage-
graves and the homes of the Arctic races in America
and Europe (See Fig. 17, and comp. Fig. 33). lie believes
tliat these passage graves, wtiich as
veryunsuitable and unnat u ral form, were made after
the^attern of the homes of the living
^ people, and so^
accounts for their resemblance to the homes s till found
in the Arctic regions. If so, these early dwellings' we
formed of a low quadrilatera], oval, or round room.
which was approached from the south or east bv a atill/
lower long and narrow passagej
The only certain remams however of the Northern
homesteads of this age, hitherto discovered, are the
fireplaces, which are found in the " kitchen-middens "
and in several other places. Such simple fireplaces,
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1.] THE STONE AGE. 19
formed of loose stones piled together, and now become
brittle from the action of fire, and begrimed with soot
and ashes, are found in several places in the south of
Sweden, under conditions which show that they belong
to the later Stone Age.
The tools with which the Northmen during the Stone
Age produced their wooden works, were insiinly knives,
sawSj borers, chisels, and axes or hatchets.
For knives they used flakes of flint like that described
in Fig. 13. These have on either hand, when well
wrought and uninjured, a very sharp edge which was
not produced by grinding, but is due to the sharp angle
at which the surfaces meet. Flint knives, like that in
• The greatest height of the room here figured was B ft. 10 in.
(near point f), the breadth 13 ft. 8 in., and the whole length
29 ft. A represents the outer door ; b the passage, 3 ft. high,
5 ft. 10 in. broad, and 11 ft. 5 in. long ; c the inner door opening
into the room d ; e the fireplace, foimed of a few large etoues
laid on the bare ground ; f an opening in the roof to let out the
smoke ; a a Bleeping places ; and a a purt of the room pnrtitioned
off for the sheep and goats.
C 2
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20 ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVILISATION. [lhap.
'Fig. 16, could not have been used for cutting wood —
they were either hunting-knives or daggers.
The flint tools of a lunate form appear to have been
used as saws, and their edge is often very distinctly
serrated, as in Fig, 15,
The edge of the chisels is either flat or hollow ; of
the latter — gouges as we should call them — we have
an example in Fig. 8. It is about as large and broad
as those we now generally use ; but most of the stone
chJR pla arp. larger t \\^<^ hmnAt^r.
f'l'he axes or hatcliets were not uncommonly very large~\
[{sec ¥i<is. G, i>, 19) ; those of flint Bometimes as muchasj
Fin. IS. — Stout »xe with woodeo huidU fouad in ftn ElDglish bog.
eighteen inches long. It is easy to see how the hafta]
were fitted into the pierced stone axes. But the flint
axes, as we said above, are never perforated. In moat
cases their hafts were probably fastened in the manner
shown in Fig. 18, which represents a stone axe found in
an English peat bog with the handle still preserved. A
flint axe found in a peat bog at Borreby, in SkS,ne, has
still marks which show that it was hafted in the same
way (Fig. 19). Besides the stone axes with handles
preserved, sometimes found in Europe, axes have also
been brought br.mp in laf-jr times from the wild peoples
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THE STONE AGE.
fof the New World, which show how such implcuiental
t could have handles securely fastened without a hole!
[(Fig. 20 J
That it waa possible to produce very fine works with
what seem such simple stone tools, is shown both from our
Fia. 20.— Stone axe with
wooden handle, from
New Caledonia.
Fm. 19.— Flint aie show-
ing msrka where the
bsTt was fastened.
experience of the Stone Age peoples of the New World,
and from the often beautifully executed implements of
bone, horn, amber, and the like, which arc found in
the " kitchen-middens " and the passage-graves (see for
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22 ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVILISATION. [cuaf.
example Figs. 24, 25, 26, and Ant. sued., Figs. 53, 75 —
91). Thia fact has also been fully confirmed by experi-
ments. In Denmark Chamberlain Sehested lately had
6ome trees felled, and all the work necessary for build-
ing a small house, with both windows and doors, carried
out with nothing more than axes and other implements
of flint ; no metal tool was allowed to be used.
Among the implements employed during the Stone
Age in making clothes, we may mention especially a
number of flint scrapers (Figs. 12, 21) with which the
hides to be used for the purpose were cleaned and
prepared ; we find also awls, needles, and a comblike
apparatus of bone. The last was probably used, just as
jnstiTimentfi of the kind are by the Eskimos, in cutting
out the leather threads for sewing.
No remains of clothes have as yet, it is true, been
discovered in the finds of the Stone Age made in
the North ; -still there is good reason to suppose that
they were for the most part, if not exclusively, made
of skins and hides, as is still the case with the most
northerly peoples of Europe and America. It is how-
ever possible that towards the close of that period
woven stufis of wool were koown in Northern countries,
because the sheep at that time occurs as a domestic
animal. The remarkable finds in the Swiss lake dwell-
ings, so instructive as illustrating the condition of
ancient peoples, have shown that during the Stone Age
in Switzerland not only woven stuffs were known, but
that flax even was cultivated in those times.
The amber, which occurs in large quantities upon
the south coasts of Scandinavia, and especinlly on those
of Jutland, was used even during the Stone Age for
ornaments, such as beads and the like, which were worn
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I,] THE STONE AGE. 23
as Decklaces. Fig. 24 shows us a bead of the form
which was osnal at this time, but is hardly ever met
with in finds of a later date. In Swedish graves amber
beads are found, often in great numbers, and that not
only in Sk&ne, but also in Vester -Gotland, whither the
amber must have been brought from SkSne or Denmark,
a long distance for those times. For instance, more
than two hundred amber beads were found in a passage-
grave near Falkoping in 1868.
Besides these there have been found in simdar graves
beads and pendants made of bone, and perforated
teeth of bears, wolves, dogs, and other animals ; they
were evidently once used as ornaments. The teeth
of the large forest animals were also worn as tokens
of victory, as proud mementoes of a strife which was
attended with far greater danger to the huntsmen of the
Stone Age than to our modem sportsmen armed with
rifles. The custom of wearing the perforated teeth of
animals as ornaments survived the Stone Age. Even
at the present day it exists among several peoples.
Shields were probably the only defensive weapons
during this Age ; but bging of course made entirely of
wood, leather, and other perishable materials, we have
DO remains of them preserved.
The ofiensive weapons were battle-axes and hammers,
daggers, spears or lances, bows and arrows, and probably
also clubs and slings. The last two are very common
among wild peoples, hut, for the same reason as the
shields, have perished without a trace. The other
classes of weapons however have been preserved by
thousands to our own time.
We ought no doubt to regard as weapons stone axes,
like those represented in Figs. 14 and 23 ; while most
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24 ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVIUSATION. [c-HiP.
of the other axes of flint and greenstone described above
(Figs. 6, t), and 19) were certainly used both as tools
and weapons.
In Fig. IG we have a dagger beautifully executed.
Tlic handle ia broadened out away from the blade, and
Fig. 22. Fio. 23
Stone oxo wiih haft-liolp. Sk. i-
has very d^icate and regular nicks along the edges.
The speiar-heads and anow-heads were usually made of
flint, sometimes of bone. Even the latter were often
provided, as Fig. 25 shows, with thin sharp flakes of
Dig,, z.d by Google
I.] THE STONE AGE. 25
flint introduced into the furrowed grooves on the
sides. The flint spear-head represented in Fig. 11 in
half its natural size, was found in a passage-grave near
Fig. 26.^Bone urow-
bead with flakes of
ftiut let in on the
■ideg. Sk. i
Falkoping in Vester-Gdtland. Others are much larger,
some being as much as fifteen inches long. Most of the
flint arrow-heads are either long, narrow and three-sided,
or short, broad, and thin ; the latter are usually barbed
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2a ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVILISATION. [chap.
(see Fig. 7). Besides these a kind of chisel-edged flint
iirrow-head has been sometimes found (see Ant. suSd., Fig,
66). A large number of these were discovered on what
is known as Lindormabacken, a sand-field upon the coast
south of Kristianstad, where the work of making flint
implements was carried on on a large scale during the
Stone Age. A chisel-edged arrow-head was found still
fixed in the shaft in a Danish peat-bog ; and in a cave in
France, which was used as a grave-chamber — probably
in the later Stone Age — several human skeletons were
discovered in 1871, one of them being that of a man
who bad been killed by an arrow of the sort described.
The arrow still remained deeply rooted in one of the
vertebra.
We have also other examples of men killed by stone
weapons. In the beginning of this century a stone
cist was discovered in the bottom of a cairn in the
south of Scotland. It contained the skeleton of a man
who had one arm all but severed from the shoulder by
the stroke of a stone axe ; a piece of the axe still re-
mained in the bone. Also in a grave at Borreby in
Denmark a small flint arrow-head was found sticking in
the eyehole of a skull. That these weapons were used
in the chase as well as in warfare is not only probable
in itself, but is actually proved by the occasional dis-
covery of the bones of animals which had been wounded
or killed by stone weapons. For example the skeleton
of a stag was found some years ago in Denmark, which
had a flint arrow-head sticking in its cheek-bone.
Fishing and the chase supplied the chief means of
subsistence during tlie Stone Age, and indeed, as the
" kitchen-middens " show, the sole means during the
earlier part of the period. Probably the larger animaJa
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THE STONE AUE.
were often caught and killed ia holes or pitfalls, in the
same way as in other countries and in later times.
|\Ve hav e traces of fishing i n Sweden dunng t'K'e'^fone
IAg^ in the tiooiis whicn nave been i'ound made either
entirely of bone (Fig. 26), or of bone with the point and
barb of flint, besides harpoons and fishing-spears, the
lat ter of bone. Nets .ind seines were probably not un-
known. /Amnngr thp T^Ur^ hf th^ lalr^ i^wpllincr at
Robenbauacn in Switzerland, belonging to this A^e. a
piece of net was found with nearly two-inch meshesA
rrhat the inhabitanta nf t]\p J^^ftl* fir°" '^"rJnr ^^'°
T>icrs
"ni-MCT Stone Are, liad ^"nif Vi'i^lj "^ lin«t« m aliipa fnrf JlNOR-
V^
'/\LUc
tiahir^g s^[\ »■"'-*
««-
Fio. 27.— Stone handmiU. V.-Gbtl. \.
•^ ^ discovery in the " kitchen middens '' of such kinds J "^''jL '}' __
of fish as could only have been caught in the deep-sea f^^t? 'T'-P j;\i^.->
water. A The oldest boats were probably made of thelc-fi^-^^y ,/
hollowed trunks of trees, such as are sometimes met with i
in our bogs and lakes : though none of those now knownf
can be referred to the Stone Age. A few boats of the!
kind however were found in the lake-dwelling atl
Robenhausen just mentioned ; and the South Sea Is-1
landers knew how to make such boats — "canoes" asi
they call them — long before they got the knowledge of |
^jnetals from tne Europeans J
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28 ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVILISATION. [caxr.
The bones of domestic aoimals found in passage-
graves of Vester-Gotland — namely, cattle, horses, sheep,
goats (?), and pigs — show that the inhabitants of
Sweden during the last part of the Stone Age were not
entirely dependent for their subsistence on the proceeds
of fishing and the chase. Id Switzerland we find that
during this period not only was pasturage regularly
carried on, but that even tillage was already practised
in that country. Besides flax, which we have already
mentioned, they grew several kinds of com (three sorts
Flu. 28.— South- African handmill in use.
of wheat, as well as two-cornered and six-cornered
barley). We have no direct proof of tillage in Sweden
during the Stone Age, but there are facts which have
long been thought to show that it was even then not
altogether unknown in that country. This view has
lately been confirmed by the discovery of a stone hand-
mill belonging to this period (Fig. 27). Mills of the
kind are still in vogue among certain peoples, and in
Fig. 28 we see how they were used.
The fireplaces already mentioned ' show that the
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I.] THE STONE AGE. 29
inhabitants of the North' during the Stone Age cooked
their food. They might have got fire either by rubbing
together two perfectly dry sticks with great rapidity for
a long time, as is still
done by many wild
peoples, or by the help
of flint and pyrites
used in much the same
way as flint and steel.
In English graves flints
and pieces of pyrites
have been found to-
gether beariog evident
traces of having been
used for this purpose.
Many of the earthen- ^■""'- s^-ci'? h^-Ki-r^uidrcn. sk. i.
ware vessels which
have been found in
Swedish graves were
no doubt used as caul-
drons for cooking.
Several of them have
on their sides small
holes, which seem to
show that the vessel
was hung up over the
fire (Fig. 29, cf. Ant. pi,. 3o._Aidmia figure on. hom«e. St J.
sued., Fig. 94). They
are often very well made, although they were evidently
formed with the hand merely, without the help of a
potter's wheel. They are not unfrequently decorated
with punched ornaments filled with a white material,
probably chalk.
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so ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVIUSATION. [chap.
From the earthenware vessels we learn the character of
the ornamentation during the Stone Age. The decora-
tions consist only of straight lines ; aa yet we find neither
spirals nor other ornaments with curved lines. On a
horn axe (Ant. suSd., Fig. 43), which probably belongs
to an early part of this period, we see two very well
engraved representations of animals, one of which is given
in Fig. 30.
The inhabitants of Sweden during the Stone Age had
FlO. 81.— Dolmen at Haga, on the island of Onist. Boh.
already, in all probability, fixed dwelling-places. This
appears from their often magnificent tombs, which seem
to point to the beginning of an organized society and the
combined industry of a small community, or of a whole
tribe. The graves of this period are commonly described
as "dolmens" {stendosar), "passage-graves" (gang-
grifter), and " atone cists " (hdllhistor),
A dolmen is a grave-chamber, of which the walls
are formed of large thick stones set up edgewise, and
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I.] THE STONE AGE. 3X
reaching from the floor to the roof. On the iuside they
are smooth, but the outside ia left rough (Fig. 31). The
floor consists of sand, gravel, and the like. The roof is
usnally formed of one huge block of stone, -which also
is smooth on the side within the chamber, but otherwise
uneven. The chamber has either four or five sides, or
is oval or nearly round.
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32 ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVILISATION. t™*^-
The passagc-gravea, or " giants'-chambers," as tliey
are also called, are built iu the same way as the dolmens,
but they are larger and distinguished by an often very
long covered passage leading to the east or south (Figs.
32, 33). There are several intermediate forms between
these and the dolmens.
The chamber in a passage-grave is not unfrequeotly
as much as twonty-four feet long, or more, nine feet
o
pfl-J
j>cr3 r — yt—3, U
\\
Fio. 33. — Pkn of a paswge.grave ne*r Falkoping \ Gotl
broad, and nearly six feet high. The passage is
narrower and lower, but sometimes as long as the
chamber.
These graves are surrounded by a low barrow, upon
the top of which the roof stones of the grave-chamber
were originally visible.
Dolmens and passage-graves occur in Sweden in con-
siderable numbers along the coast of Skine, in Skara-
borgs-lan, in Vester-Gotland, and in Bohuslan ; more
sparsely, in other parts of Vester-Gotland and in Halland.
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l] the stone age. 33
Even in Nerike and West Sodermanland aome tumuli
have been discovered which, in form at least, are very
like the passage-graves. /Ro't long a^o a dolmen was dis-j
[covered in the south-east of Norway, the tirst in thaq
[country./ In Denmark graves of the kind are very com-
mon. They also occur in the British Isles and along the
coasts of Europe from the mouth of the Vistula on to the
coasts of France and Portugal, in Italy, Greece, and the
Fio. S*.— Stone cial ne>r Skottened. V.Gotl. 21 ft. lung.
Crimea, and also in North Africa, Palestine, and India.
All however do not belong to the Stone Age. The
Khdsi, a wild people dwelling on the highland of
India, even at the present day still construct a sort of
dolmen, in which they bury their dead.
A stone cist is a large, oblong, and four-sided grave ;
in point of size and construction it is much like the
chamber of a passage-grave, except that it has no
passage, and is usually built of thinner stones. The
lower part is surrounded by a small barrow of earth or
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34 ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVIUSATION. [chai-.
atones, but the upper part ia often bare (Fig. 34).
These graves are highly interesting as representing an
intermediate form between the passage-graves and
the great stone cista of the early Bronze Age, which are
entirely covered with a barrow.
Stone cists standing free with the upper part
Fio. 35,-StoaociBtnrair Karlehy. V.Gotl. 23 It loDg.
visible over the surrounding barrow, a form of grave
peculiar to Sweden, occur in great numbers in Vester-
Gotland, Bohuslan, Dalsland, and the south-west of
Vermland. On the island of Oland also a few graves
have been discovered which must be referred to this
class. Stone cists entirely covered with a barrow {Figs.
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1.] THE STONE AGE. SB
35, 36) are found in the same provinces, as well as in
Nerike, Oster-Gotland, Sm&laiid, Bleking, and the island
of Gotland.
Of the forms of graves which we have described the
dolmens have proved to be the earliest; the passage-
graves are a little later ; the uncovered stone ciats
are later still ; while the cists covered with a barrow
belong to the time of transition between the Stone and
Fio. S6.— Plui of the atone cut dsKribed in Fig. 3G.
Bronze Ages. The last resemble very closely the graves
of the first part of the Bronze Age.
During the Stone Age bodies were always buried
unbumt, in a recumbent- or sitting position. Many
pass^e-graves contain from fifty to a hundred bodies.
By the aide of the dead body was usually laid a
weapon, a tool, or some ornaments. We often find in
graves of this period earthenware vessels, now filled only
with earth. Possibly they once contained food, which
the dead, it was supposed, might need in the life beyond
the grave. The care bestowed upon the last resting-place
of the departed certainly betokens a belief in a future
life ; but the things placed by the side of the dead seem
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m ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVILISATION. [c-map.
to show that that life was believed to be merely a cou-
tinuation of the Hfe on earth, with the same needs and
the same pleasures.
Upon the upper surface of the roof-stones of graves
belonging to the Stone Age are often seen small, round,
sometimes oblong, cup-shaped depreasiona. These were
certainly used for ofleringa either to or for the dead. In
Fig. 37 we see a sacrificial stone of this sort, which was
found a little while ago in the passage to a passage-
grave. What gives us good ground to suppose that
these holes, which are now popularly called " elf-mills,"
were actually intended for
offerings, is that even to the
present day they are in many
places regarded as holy, and
offerings secretly made in
them.
The graves show that the
greater part of the present
Gotaland, the South of Verm-
land, as well as Nerike and
West Sodermanland were more or less thickly populated
before the end of the Stone Age. Even in other parts
of the country — especially East Sodermanland, Up-
land, and Veatmanland — stone implements have been
met with here and there ; but it would be difficult to
say how far they should be regarded as relics of the
Stone Age, or as belonging to a somewhat later time.
For stone implements were still used during the Bronze
A ge, as we see from many finds.
[Of all the Swedish provinces SkAne and especially
ftEe low land along the coast was undoubtedly the most
/thickly peopled. Of about 64,000 relies of atone, which
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/
I.] THE STONE AGE. 37
^
are now known to have been found in Sweden, mor^
than 45,000 come from Sk&ne. Only about 4,000 are
known from the whole of Svealand and Norrland. In
Sk&ne by far the majority of the stone implements, that
ia nearly 40,000, are of flint. In the Malar Valley flint
implements are so scarce that among the 1,500 stone
implements fix)m Sodermanland as yet known little
more than a hundred are of flint.
7At the end of the Stone Age the inhabitants. of thi
'North were not only still entirely ignorant of metals-
even gold, but also of the art of writing. And con
sequently we have no remains of the language of this
age to show us what the people was which then called
Sweden its fatherland, ^ad attempt baa been made to
an swer this question by means of the skulls found j
the graves of the Stone Age. Pump fir* ^"T ^ ' "'
of the Laps, but most of them bear a close rftsemblance
to the Swedish skulls of the present dav : which seems
.to show t hat a mixture of two diflferent races had at thi t
[Very early time ^read y taken place/
[This circumstance, coupled with the fact that no con - 1
siderabJe immigration of a new people into iJweden[
seems to have taken place alter tbe end oi tne oti
one
Age, makes it nighly probable that tne i cutonic anccs-i
tors of the Wwetles hey a" t^ «pt.tiA in rhp'T^ d from thel
t.n»;>,n;r,r. nt flin T n+a.. S+nna Aire Tlio onnnllpr niimbpr
beginnipg of the Later Stone Age. The smaller number.
jf skulls of a non-Scandir|avi.'m tvpp wTiich occur in
lie graves of the Stone Age, ar e, no doubt, relics of_
:he people who dwelt in tne country peiore tke bwedisn
mmigration. _
j^Tbat the «tone Age lasted, for a very long timel n
"the North ia proved, among other things, by the f act
that tills period reached a far iiigh^ developmenl flie're^
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38 ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVILISATION. [chai-.
i than anywhere else in EuropeJ At what tune the Stone \
Age began in Sweden w'e cannot even approximately
determine. But everything seems to show that it ended 1
rather before than after 1500 b.c., and therefore a boutj
3500 years before our timeV In many countnes ot tke
Flo, SS.— Knife of il
East and in the south of Europe the Stone Age had come
to an end long before ; while in some parts of the New
World this stage of civilisation has continued to our
o wn day.
/Besides the_ re lics of the Stone A^e already discussed./
which are found almost entirely in the middle and
I south of Sweden, several antiquities oi stone — usuall]
i en found in the north part of the
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THE STONE AGE.
reo untry, which do not seem to have belonged t o ^
the people who constructed the dolmens and thi
_Fiii]aDdaDd other Northern cuuntriea inhabited by Laps,
passage-gravea. Tbeae antiquities, wmch are calleJ
Arctic, and of which we have specimens in bigs. 38 and
39. are chiefly met with in Lapland and Norrland. and
bear a close resemblance to those which are lound in
J^'ins, or ot her peoples closely rel ated to them. All this
aSeTO^^^proW^BgnB^^rckic atone implements are
relics 01 tlie Lap^^Bmrcmni? 16 the time wben th'
people was jtUl ignorant ot tne use ol metaJ!. At the
same tinae.jtbajjQauiigatively large number of such aton^
ieflta_iBet_witfa in the districts on the coast from
Vesterbotten to fltf^^TJltland. and also in Dalarna, dis-
tricts not now inhabited by Lapa, shows that formerli_
they dwelt in far more soutnerly tracts ot Bweden thani
.at the present gay.)
I
Selics of the Stone Age have been found in almost
every country in the world, in England and in France,
as well as beneath the classical soil of Italy and Greece,
in Egypt, Asia Minor, and India, as well as in China
and Japan.
The most important contribution to our knowledge
of the Stone Age was made by the discovery of the
lake-dwellings in Switzerland — in the winter of 1854-5.
Since then remains of these peculiar buildings have
been found in many diflerent places, botb in Switzer-
land and other countries. They were built up out of
the water upon thousands of piles driven into the
bottom of the lake. Many of these buildings had been,
burnt, or destroyed from some other cause, during the
Stone Age ; others are later. In many cases the peat
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40 ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVILISATION. [chap.
formed over the ruins has preserved eveu the smallest
and most delicate parts of their coDtents. These re-
markable discoveries point to a people of the Stone
Age with fixed dwelling places engaged in pasturage
and tillage, with many other proofs of a higher culture
than we are accustomed to ascribe to this period.
That a Stone Age is not necessarily accompanied by
an entire want of culture, is shown also by the sur-
prisingly high civilisation which existed in Tahiti even
before the first visit of the Europeans. And yet the
inhabitants of tliis island were so completely ignorant
of metals, that at first they planted the iron needles
got from Cook's people in their gardens, believing that
they were shoots of some very hard plant, out of which
they hoped that the life was not altogether extinct.
After the Stone Age had come to an end the true
meaning of the stone implements was soon forgotten.
When they were from time to time found in the ground
they were called "thunder-bolts" or "Thor's bolts,"
and were believed to have fallen with the lightning.
This belief and this name, both stUl very general in
Sweden, are found also to a remarkable extent in all
parts of the world, from Japan to South America.
Equally common with this belief of the heavenly
origin of the stone axes appears to be the superstition
that these " Thor's bolts " are a sovereign remedy against
lightning and other disasters. Even at the present day
it is often impossible to induce people to sell antiquities
of stone, because they believe that by so doing they lose
a protective amulet. In the museum at Visby a stone
axe is preserved which was long used by its owner to hang
in her vat, in order to prevent the troU from destroying
the brew. And only a short while ago a peasant in
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il THE STONE AGE. 41
Vennland employed stone axes to sink his nets. He
had observed, he fancied, that the fish went much more
readily into them than into those which were not so
weighted.
These old stone implements were also supposed to
possess a marvellous power against sickness in men and
animals. In the National Museum some stone imple-
ments are preserved, of which the edges had been
chipped off and given as a medicine to sick cattle.
We know of stone implements used as amulets be-
longing to many different times and nations. A most
interesting example of this is a little axe made of
nephrite, probably from Egypt, which is covered with
Gnostic formulse. The letters are Greek, of the form
used in Alexandria during the third and fourth
centuries of our era.
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CHAPTER II.
THE BRONZE AGE.
{From aboul 1500 to 500 B.C.)
Before the Stone Age ended the inhabitants of Sweden
had raised themselves considerably above the savage
state ; but, so long as they were completely ignorant of
metals, it was impossible for them to reach a higher
degree of civilisation. But at last the fruits of the
civilisation attained by the cultured races of the East
spread to the distant regions of the North ; and through
the knowledge of metals, at first only bronze and gold,
there began for those lands a new era known as the
Bronze Age.
By these words is understood that period in the earliest
civilisation of the Northern races, when they made their
weapons, tools, &c. of bronze, a mixture of copper and
tin. Besides bronze, they knew only of one metal,
namely, gold. Iron, steel, silver, and all other metals
were still completely unknown in these countries.
Before we go further we must call attention to the
inaccuracy of an opinion which not unfrequently finds
expression, that all antiquities of bronze should be re-
ferred by antiquarians to the Bronze Age, Vessels, rings,
buckles, needles and the like were, as we might have sup-
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CttAi-.ii.] THE BRONZE AGE. 43
posed, still made of bronze after the end of this period,
just aa they are even in our own day, but generally of
a somewhat different composition from that used in
the Bronze Age.^ To this age belong only weapons
and edge-tools made of bronze, and such vessels and
ornaments as are usually found with them.
With respect to the important question how the
Bronze Age began in the North, diiferent opinions have
been expressed. Some have supposed that it was due
to the immigration of a Celtic race, others to a Teutonic
immigration. Professor Nilsson has endeavoured to
show that the North is indebted to Phoenician colon-
ists for the earliest knowledge of metals, while Herr
Wiberg, in Gefle, regarded the Bronze Age to have begun
in the North through the influence of the Etruscans.
Also Professor Lindenschmit of Mainz, who does not
believe in the existence of a Bronze Age in the sense
understood by the Northern antiquarians, considers that
m ost of the bronze works in question we re Etruscan.
t seems to us that there are strong gr ounds for tUe !
ip tnat the beginning of" the Bronze Age in Scandi-
il&via was not connectctl with any great immigration of
new race, but that th e people of t he North learnt the i
flrr. n t wnrt^ j f jj j hronze by interco urse wiTh other nations. .'
"T^e resemblance of the graves during the last part of!
th e Stone Age and the early part of the B ronze Age, :
"ffSI^a other "circumstances, point to such a concTusio
usion.j
From Asia the " Bronze Culture," if we may so express
the hiyher civilisation dependent on the knowledfre (;)fl
^ [The word bronze is throughout this translatiou, as in Swedish,
tued of all combinatioDB of copper with tin or zinc, such as we com-
monly distinguish by the names bronze, gun-metal, bell-metal,
bran, ^.— Tb.]
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ASCIEST SWEDISH CIVILISATION.
Fig. 42.— Hmdloof J
(Fig. 41) ^ seen
the top. t
FiCi. 43. — Lower part of thi:
ferrule of a bronze spear-
head. Up]. J.
Fig. 40. — Massive bronzii Flu. 41. — Bronie dagaer
axa with haft-hole. with handle of Uia
Sk. i. same materia Ol. J.
Fig. 44, — Fibula of bronze. Sk. J.
SwEBiSH Antwuities from the Eablier Bronib Aok.
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THE BRONZE AGE.
Fia 15. — Bronze knife.
Fio. ie. — End or a large bronze collar. SmAl J.
SwRDisH Antiquitirs f
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40 ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVILISATION. [chap.
bronze, had gradually spread itself over the continent
of Europe in a northerly and north-westerly direction,
until at last it reached the coasts of the Baltic.
We have already mentioned that the end of the
Stone Age, and therefore the beginning of the Bronze
Age, in the North, must be regarded as having taken
place 3,900 years ago. The latest investigations have
shown that the Bronze Age proper came to an end in
these regions in the beginning of the fifth century BC.
It la sted therefore about a tho usand years.
)As_the Bronze Age comprises so long a period, attempts'
"E^e naturally been made to distinguish the antiquities
belonging to its earlier and later parts. Such attempts
might have been supposed almost useless, when we consider
that among the thousand of finds of the Bronze Age in
the North as yet kno\'ni, there is not a single coin, or any
other object, with an inscription, either native or foreign.
Nevertheless, by a careful and thorough examination
of the many antiquities and graves of the Bronze Age
now known, it has fortunately proved possible to dis-
tinguish in it six consecutive periods.^ But as it
would take us too long to describe separately each of
these periods, we must restrict ourselves to mentioning
w^hi ch of tlie antiquities belon g to the earlier, and which
to the later, portion of the Bronze Age.|
[The works of the earlier part — the Earlier Bronzy
r Ago as it is called— are decorated with fine spiral
1 ornaments and zigzag lines, as we see in Figs. 40 — 44.
t The graves generally contain remains of unbumt bodies.
\The antiquities of this period found in the North (which
' Montelius. Om tulgbesldmninff inom hronsuldem med xirslciiJt
. a/seende pa Skandinavien (Stockholm, 1885) " The DiviBion of Periods
in the Bronze Age with special reference to Scandinavia."
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TH£ BBONZE AOE.
appear to be almost without an exception ot native
workmanship) are distinguished by artistic forms, and
point to a highly developed taste in the working of
bronze. They generally surpass in this respect thi
relics of the Bronze Age found in almost alt other
European cotrntriesj
lOn the other hand a e^lance at Figa. 45—48 showA
that the works belonging to the latter part of the period,
the so-called Later Bronze Age, are characterized by a
very different taste and style of ornamentation, though
even they are often the result of great skill. We do
not find in them spirals, of the same shape as in the
Earlier Bronze Age, engraved or beaten in with a
punch ; but the ends of rings, knife-handles, and the
like, are often rolled up in spiral volutes {Figs. 4&,
.46 , 62). Duripg this period the dead were always
. Dumt.
'^It would take us too tar a-lield to discuss in full aT H^
tlTe proo& on which the divisions of this period depends. I
SufiSce it at present to say that such antiquities as those '■
described in Figs. 40—44 have often been discovered in i
graves with unburnt bodies, but never in connexion
with such articles as are represented in Figs. 45 — 48.
These latter, on the other hand, are proved by many
different finds to be contemporary with the graves I
which contain burnt bonea. That the graves with un- .
burnt bodies are earher than those with burnt bones, j
is obvious from the fact that when, as frequently |
happens, both occur in the same barrow, the former are J
always Cound at the bottom, while the latter occur higher I
up and nearer the edges of the }>arrow : they must |
therefore have been placed there later (see Fi^ , pfi)-T
iJy Jar the majority of the antiquities belonging
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48 ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVILISATION. [chap.
to the Swedish Bronze Age (of both periods) are of
native production. Nearly all the articles of bronze
were cast ; it is only towards the close of this period
that we find traces of the use ot the hammer in
working the bronze.
The proofs of the native origin of the antiquities of
the North are partly direct, as we shall presently show,
and partly only iodireot. For instance, we know that
most of these objects of bronze, such as we have in
Figs. 40 — 48 and others, are of such types or forms of
decoration, as are not found in any other but Northern
countries, -^or as a rule we may safely say that
if antiquities of a certain type are common within a
certain district, but are not found in other parts of the
worid, they were made inside that district.
Sometimes we can thus see not only that a thing is
native in the North, but even in what part of the North
it was made. So it has often proved possible to dis-
tinguish between Swedish and Danish works of the
Bronze Age. Sometimes a ceri;ain tjrpe is seen to be
restricted to a still narrower compaaa We have an
example in the JS)ulce, like that in Fig. 44. These
occur only in the south-east of Skine, and in the island
of Bomholm ; but there they are so common, that they
must certainly have been made there.
The direct proofs of a considerable native manufacture
of bronze objects in Sweden, during this period are, first
and foremost, that several moulds have been found for
the casting of axes (the so-called celts), knives, saws,
and bracelets (see Ant. suid., Figs. 209 — 212). Such
a stone mould for casting four bronze saws, which
was found at Vidtskofle, in Sk&ne, is represented in
Fig. 49. Several other moulds intended for casting
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II.]
THE BRONZE AGE.
similar sawa have also been discovered ia Sweden and
Denmark. When to this we add the circumatanee that
bronze sawa of exactly the aame form (Fig. 50) are
found in great abundance in the North, but none of the
Bort are known from other lands, it must be allowed that
we have unusually strong evidence, both direct and
indirect, that these tools originated there.
We at preaent know of sixteen moulds found in
Sweden, and about the aame number in Denmark,
Fio. SO.—Bronze saw, DaUI. |.
belonging to the Bronze Age. The chief reason why
they have not been preserved in still greater numbers,
is that all the finer works in bronze were cast in a way
which necessitated the immediate breaking up of
the moulds.
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53 ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVILISATION. [(.hap.
The actual use of casting-moulds in the North is
proved by the number of works belonging to the
Bronze Age found there, which were not finished oflF
or " planished " after easting, and so were only half-
executed ; as also by those which were damaged in
easting. One of the most remarkable examples of the
latter is a bronze vessel, found on the island of Fyen
(of the same shape as in Fig. fl5), which is still filled
with the core, over which the thin metal was cast.
The casting had miscarried, and there
was a large hole on one aide of the
vessel.
In addition to the moulds a great
many other objects of the Bronze
Age have been found in the North,
which furnish an equally direct proof
of the native working of bronze
during this period. To such belong,
for example, what are technically
l-ia. 51.— Ilronzo runner ,, , „ ■ ,, ,
with four juts. Daiat.j. called 'runners or jets, such
as that given in Fig. 51. When the
molten bronze was poured into the mould it generally
filled up al.so the neck or hole above, through which the
metal ran. When the easting was completed and the
bronze had cooled, the runner, that is the lump of bronze
which remained in the hole and did not belong to the object
east, was of course broken off. The original of Fig. 51
was evidently cast in a mould the neck of which was
divided into four channels, as in Fig. 49 ; it was found
at Briicke io Jern parish, Dalsland, near the shore of the
Vener Lake. It was lying in an earthenware vessel which
contained also several other runners and lumps of bronze,
besides several broken pieces of swords, rings, needles,
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n.] THE BRONZE AGE. 51
saws, &c., all of the same material. This discovery of a
" bronze-founder's stock " gains increased interest from
the fact that in the same district, at Backen in Tosso
parish, a mould for casting bronze celts was also found.
Similar hoards of broken pieces of bronze works, lumps
of bronze, runners, &c., evidently intended for meltiug
down, have been often met with in other parts of the
country, as at Asled in Vester-Gotland, Fredshog and
Odaraliif in Skdne. Sometimes also tumps of this metal
have been found in the North, whose shape seems to
indicate that they have remained over in the bottom
o f the crucible or ladle after casting.
jAil tnc bronze used during the Bronze Age propei
in Sweden is, as we said above, a compound of copper j
and tin, and contains usually about 90 per cent, of the I
fonner metal, and 10 per cent of the latter. As tliere I
are no tin mines in Scandinavia, and the copper mines I /'^tA'
were probably not worked till more than a thousand I
years after the end of the Bronze Age, we must conclude
that the bronze used during this period was imported I
from foreign countries. Probably it was already mixed 1
either in the form of works, or in bars, because copper I
and tip in a purp state vqry aolfl^"' ^...^..t ;■. th^ Nnrfjl '
in finds f^f thja Ap^ft-I
Almost all the bronze objects made here during
the time in question were, as we have seen, cast ; and
the art of casting had reached an unusu;d degree
of perfection. We have an instance of this among
others in the great thin bronze vessels cast over a clay
core (Fig. 95), and one still more striking in a pair
of large and beautiful bronze axes with very wide
spreading blades found at Skogatorp near Eskilstuna
(see Fig. 52). These are not massive, but consist only
E '2
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62 ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVILISATION. [chap.
of thin plates of bronze, which were cast over a still
existing clay core ; the bronze is hwdly in any part more
than the third part of a line in thickness.
We have a proof of still greater skill in casting in a
sort of bronze chain sometimes found in Sweden (see
Guide, Fig. 55). They are cast link within link ; yet the
Fio. 52. — BronM uie, of Uud platca over claj con. Sodennaiil. ) .
links are so tight together, that it seems scarcely possible
to conceive how they could have been so cast.
The art of soldering metals was unknown in that
country .during the Bronze Age. When two pieces of
bronze had to be joined together, or a repair was
necessary, they managed it — as a number of still pre-
served antiquities show — either with small pins (see
Ant. suSd, Fig. 123), or by casting bronze over the joint,
often in a very clumsy way.
Buttons, sword-hilts, and other works of bronze were
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u.] THE BRONZE AGE.
som etimes decorated with pieces of amber inlaid. I Still
more irequently were the l^Dze works — hanging
vessels and sword-handles, for example — decorated by
inlaying a dark brown material like resin, which on i
the yellow bronze, almost as bright as gold, mxist have /
produced a very good effect. Large round cakes ofi
the same material, which was also used for several othe/
purposes of workmanship, are not unfrequently foumi
in the peat bogs of Sweden. The largest hoard of thil
kind was made in the year 1845 in a small peat bog an
Tfl,garp in SkSjie, where fourteen cakes of resin wera
found standing edgewise close to each other. Theyl
were bored throiifyh jix the middle, and had evidently!
^een tied tr^prpthpr / (See Ant. suid, Fig. 194.)
The art of gilding, in the proper sense of the word,
was certainly not yet known ; but objects made of
bronze are often found overlaid with thin plates of
gold. We have examples of this in the two large
bronze axes from Skogstorp just mentioned, as well as
in several pins, buttons, sword-handles, &c.
Having thus glanced at the bronze industry in Sweden,
we will endeavour to describe the most essentiial features
of what is yet known of Northern civilisation during the
Bronze Age.
Of the dwelling-houses, which were in all probability
usually simple wooden huts, no traces remain, nor are
there any representations of them on the " rock-carvings "
(kallristingar). For felling trees, house-building, and
other kinds of carpentry, the Northmen had during the
Bronze Age nearly the same sorts of tools as we have
already seen in use during the Stoue Age, namely,
knives, saws (Fig. 49), awls, chisels, axes and hammers ;
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54 ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVILISATION. [chap.
though these tools were now more usually of brouze.
But several sorts of stone tools — more particularly axes,
hammers, and the like — were used even during the
Bronze Ago, as we know from many finds. For
bronze was a costly material, and for many purposes
flints or other kinds of
stone, could be used with
advantage.
ITie most common tool
of the Brouze Age is a
kind of axe or chisel,
known by the name of
" celt." These celts,
which were originally
copies of the stone axes,
are of two kinds — the
socketed celts {Fig. 58),
and those which are not
socketed {Figs. 56, 57).
The latter were, like the
flint axes, fixed into one
end of a cloven haft (Fig,
53). The socketed celts,
on the other hand, had a
handle fixed into a socket,
Fm. 63. ~A Celt (not socketpJ) fastened and bound tO the little
to tliB bnft, frnm a rock -carving of tbe , i - . - n
KronzB Age. Sk. loop, whlch 18 USUally tO
be seen just under the
moutli of the socket {Fig. 54). How common both
iheso kinds were during the Bronze Age is easily seen
from the fact that, among about four thousand objects
of bronze belonging to this period found in Sweden,
more than one thou.sand are celts.
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u.] THE BRONZE AGE. 55
Similar bronze celts were used also in many other
countries, both in and out of Europe (see Fig. 55), and
celts of iron are still in use in Africa.
What we have already said of the other axes is equally
true of the celta, that
some of them were wea-
pons, while the rest were
used as tools. We ought
however certainly to re-
gard as weapons such Fio, BJ.— Bronze socketed celt with wooden
. , 3 1. .. r 1 ij. ^^f found in a salt-mme at Hilloin iu
costly and tasteiui ceJts Austria.
as that given in Fig. 57.
Similar ones have often
been found in graves to-
gether with other wea-
pons.
Of sewing implements
there have been found
especially needles, awls,
tweezers, and knives.
They are almost always
of bronze ; but a few
tweezers and one awl of
gold have been found In
Sweden and Denmark,
The awls were, of course, ^t^
fixed in a haft ; some '
hafts made of bronze,
bone, and amber are still preserved. The needles
were used in making woollen clothes, of which we
shall speak presently. The other implements were
used for sewing leather or skins. Narrow strips or
threads of skin were cut out with the knife, holes
Dig,, z.d by Google
ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVILISATION.
Fio. 68.— Bronia celt
(not socket«d).
Hedelp. i.
Fio. 67.— Bronie celt
(not socketed).
01.1.
D,;i,,!„l,COO<^IC
THE BRONZE AOE.
Fio. 62.— GolU bracelet. Sk. J.
Fig. S3. — Bron/o lorqne. Hall. i.
FlQ. e4.~SpiraI bronze braevlet. Sk. i
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68 ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVILISATION. [chap.
bored with the awl, and the leather thread drawn
through the holes with the tweezers. Theae imple-
ments are much more frequent than the needles, which
probably indicates that clothes of skin were far more
generally worn than those of wool during this period.
Scissors were unknown in the Bronze Age, but came
into use in the Iron Age.
On the character of the clothes themselves light has
been thrown most unexpectedly by the discoveries of
Kio. 65.— Bronio ornament with iuUid reain on the knob. Hall. j.
late years. In the examination of a barrow at Dommcs-
torp, in Holland, in 1869, a piece of woollen stuff,
5 ft. long and 2 ft. wide, was found in a stone cist.
It was a kind of shawl which was spread over the
burnt bones deposited in the cist. The whole of
it could not be recovered, but the larger pieces were
secured, and are now preserved in the National Museum.
The weaving is quite simple (see Fig. 66). The colour
is now brown ; but at both the narrower ends is seen a
light yellow border, 4 in. broad.
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n.] THE BRONZE AGE. I
fStill more surprising are some diacoveries made i
Denmark. In isel, m IflG' i^o-calleci " !breeiilidi"
barrow at Havdrup in Kibe amt, a coffin was found
Doade out of a cloven and hollowed trunk of an oak.
In this coffi n^ which f»rtiin«tp1v w«h PTaminf^^ by [
FlQ. fl6.— Piere of woollen stuff of the Bronw Age. Hall. i.
experts, a warrior had been buried with
with all his clothes {Fig. 67). The
preserved clothes of simply woven wool
high cap, a wide, roundly-cut mantle,
and two small pieces of wool, which probably covered
the legs ; at the feet were seen some small remains of
leather, which were possibly once shoes. The cap, which
had no shade, was made of thick woven wool, and the
outside was covered with projecting pieces of worsted.
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ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVILISATION. [chap.
all ending in a knot. Tlie inaide of the mantle also was
covered with pendent worsted threads. The tunic was
kept together by a long woollen belt, which went twice
found the middle, was knotted in front, and had two
long ends hanging down and decorated with fringes.
They also found in the grave a second wooUen cap and
a woollen shawl decorated with tassels ; half of the
latter lay rolled up as a pillow under the head. The
whole contents of the coffin were inclosed in a hide,
probably that of a cow. Although the woollen clothes
were so remarkably well-preserved the body had alfiiost
completely perished ; even the skeleton had crumbled
i iway. /Only |tfael black hair and__tha-biam_DEQt£Ct£d— luL
the caplwerelpreservedi; the form of the brain could still.
iriouslyf enougb. be 'eaaily recognized/ By the left side
I of the body lay a bronze aword in a wooden sheath lined
' with skin. At the foot stood a round wooden box
containing a smaller box of the same kind, in which lay
" the last-mentioned woollen cap, as well as a horn comb
and a bronze knife. The knife, which in shape ia like
', a modern razor, had possibly been used fQr_J;hfi_sMlfl
1^
yriie value of this remarkable find — and others like it
have since been made — is greatly increased by the
discovery ten years later in 1871, of a complete
woman's dress of the same period, in another Danish
barrow, Borum-Eshbi, near Arhus in Jutland. In this
case also the body was buried in a coffin made out of a
cloven and hollowed trunk of an oak. An untanned
hide, probably of a cow or an ox, inclosed the contents
of the coffin. The body had been wrapped in a large
mantle, woven with a mixture of coarse wool and cow
hair. That it was a woman who was here buried, was
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THE BRONZE AGE.
Dig,, z.d by Google
ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVILISATION.
[CBAP.
iThe robe was kept together round the body by two
iwoollen bands, one of coarser, the other of finer work.
[The latter band, or rather belt, was of wool and cowhair
Imixed, woven in three rows, of which the middle ap-
Ipe ared to have honn of a < , 1iffi^rRnf, folniir from those on.
jthe sides. Ite nded in thick ornaniental tasselej
IL'hc other bronze ornam ents tj ^ lt|>if nut of t^c cnfflnjj
besides the Jibula already mentioned, were a spiral |
finger-ring, two bracelets, a torque, and three round, I
beautifully decorated plates of different sizes with points I
jirojecting in the middle. A comparison with similar /
ornaments recently found in other graves proves that!
they were decorative plates belonging to belts. Strangely!
enough there lay by the side of this womnn's body s
brn
^ dagger with a horn handle.!
[It is dittieult in most cases to decide with absolute
certainty whether a grave of the Bronze Age contained
the body of a man or a woman ; and so we cannot adduce
any other certain example from this period of weapons
in a woman's grave. But it should be mentioned that,
in a tree-cofiin of oak in the so-called Dragshoi, near
Ribe, a bronze dagger was found, although the long hair
upon the still remarkably well preserved skull made it
probable that the body there buried belonged to .a
woman and not to a man. Hitherto there has been
a general tendency to regard each grave in which
weapons are found as the grave of a man ; but our
experience from Borum-Eshoi shows that this view is
not always correct, at least where the weapon is a
dagger. No objection on the contrary can be raised
against the opipion that the graves in which bronze.
stvords have been found contained bodies of n
tThe remarkable intimation of Amazons during the"]
■ Google
THE BRONZE AGE.
"lironze Age in tlie JNorth, whicL the find in Borum"
Eshoi gives us, gains probability from the fact that wi
hear of Amazons among several peoples on the coast!
of the Mediterranean, at a time when they had aboui
the same degree of civilisation as the Northmen durin;
the Bronze Age. We remember too the accounts of-|
the " Shield-Virgin " even in the North during the
latter part of heathen times.!
IWe see then that the womeD'a dre ss consisteu duriug '
tde UTonze Age of the same two most important parts — :
a robe and a jacket — as are now worn, at any rate ii
the country parts. But if the clotbea found ii
Treenboi ought to be regarded as an ordinary exampli
of the men's dress of that time, it must have been very
different from what is not merely now worn, but from
that wo rn during the latte r part of heathen times. The
absence of breeches or trousers is particularly notice^iblej
|Botb Treenhiji and Borum-Ewlioi arc proved bytheT
"bronze implem ents found in them to belonjT to a ve ry
eariy part ol the Bronze Age, and are therefore nearly
3,000 years old. That it was possible for woollen clothes
to be thus marvellously preserved in a grave for so long
a time was due of course to excei)tioaaUy favourable
conditions, and most particularly to the foct that tliey
were laid in oaken coffins, the tannin in oak being
remarkably conducive to the preservation of organic
m aterial. ^
'^'be stuff most used during the liron/e Ag-ewagi
reertainly wool, a native product of the sheep-farming
I which had been carried on in Sweden since the last
I part of the Stone Age. In a grave belonging to the!
\ latter part of the Bron ze Age however, a piece of vcr^j
f^fine linen was also lound.J
Dignz.dbyGoO'^le
04 ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVILISATION. [chap.
If tlio ornaments possessed by the Northmen during
tbe Stone Age were insignificant, those of the Bronze
Age on the contrary were far more beautiful and
varied. They were chiefly made of gold and bronze.
Beads and sirailar ornaments of amber do not appear
to have been so general in the Bronze, as in the Stone
Viii. 70. — Bronze brooi)!, lioli, i}.
Age. Silver ornament.s. glass beads, and the like, were
still unknown.
Id graves belonging to the earlier part of the Bronze
Age are found beautiful oi-miments for the neck and the
breast (Guide, Fig. 42), Jib(iJ{f; and brooches of bronze
(Figs. 44, 611, 70), large round belt ornaments with points
projecting in tbe middle {Fi^.Gbund Ant. sued. Fig. Ill),
bracelets and finger-rings of bronze and gold, frequently
of a spiral shape (Figs, fil, 64), bronze buttons, &c.
Combs, which appear to have been unknown in the
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THE BRONZE AGE.
Stone Age, are not unfrequently met with in the graves
of thia period (Fig. 71).
Fia. 72. — Bronze torque. Gotl. J.
During the later part of the Bronze Age besides
ornaments of the kinds already mentioned (Figs. 60, G2,
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Cii ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVILISATION. [ohai-.
70) they had also differeut sorts of pendants and pins
{Ant. sued. Figs. 213 — 220), and especially a great
number of large bronze rings, of which the largest were
worn on the neck {see Figs. 4C, 63, 72, and Ant. sued.
Figs. 227—233). Most of these bronze ring.s Lave still
[its, of foiL'ifj'B Borkmansliip.
preserved a considerable degree of elasticity, although
they Iiavc lain some 2,000 years in the ground.
The weapons of the Bronze Age were to a large extent
of the same kinds as those "in use during the Stone Age ;
they consisted, namely, of daggers, axes, spears, bow»
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II.] THE BRONZE ACE. «7
and arrows, and probably clubs and Blings. Tlic most
important defensive weapon was the shield, which, as we
have seen, was probably used also by the people of the
Stone Age. But to these were now added swords and
helmets.
The shields were usually of wood or leather, but besides
these sonae have been found in Sweden and Denmark
belonging to the later part of the Bronze Age, which
were entirely made of bronze. A beautiful shield of
this sort, very large and almost round, consisting of a
thin plate of bronze with ornaments of repousse work,
was found in 1865 in » peat bog at Naekhalle, near
Varbeig in Halland, and is now preserved in the National
Museum. Id the centre of the inside there is a handle,
but it is so small as only to allow room for two fingers
^a ee Fig. 73V
■ /Only once have an y traces of helmets be lo nging
„^
tlie tJrbhze Age been met with, when a chin-piece
beautifully decorated and overlaid with gokl was found
in Denmark ; it belonged to the earlier part of the BronJie
But in the rock-carvings of the same period
men are sometimes represented witli helmets. No
other defensive weapons, such as coats of mail and the
like, have been disctfvtiredj
[Swords and daggers of bronze CFi gs. 41 , 7 J) \\:i.\-». CT^
/found in Sweden in very large numbe rs ; more than 500
I of them are already known. ^The swords we re usually
\ constructed for thrusting, and no t for cu t^.D£;..jiiid. Jh is
perhaps explains the fact, so often noticed, that the..b ilts
^ f the bronze swords, especiall y the earjicf o n es^ s cepi loo,'
short for our hands. They are generally_long_enough if|
. the Bword ia held like a dagger . The blades are alm ostj
\^alwaya two-edgflfl anfl V^iy pointetL/ A bronze weapon ,
2
Dig,, z.d by Google
ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVILISATION.
Kia. 70,— Bronre
dagger with
horn liandla.
Hill. i.
Fio. 77.-
♦
TiQ. 74'.— BroDM Fio. Tfl.—LeatliCT sheath
sword. with bronie chape for
O.-Gbtl. i. dagger (Fig. 75). J.
Fio. 7S.— Bronze Sfrord
with handle at the
Bune material, of
foieign workmuibip.
Verml. f
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il] the bronze AfiE. «9
quite unique of its kind,' was lately found in Oster-
Getland. It has a one-edged, sabre-like blade, blunt in
front and turned back at the point {see Guide, Fig. 60)-
The Lilts which, except in the very latest, have no traces
whatever of a cross-guard, were made either of bronze
or of wood, bone, or horn. In the latter case they are
now usually lost. The bronze hilts are often overlaid
with gold and decorated with inlaid pieces of amber, or
enamelled with pieces of resin in the manner above
described (see p. 53).
Not unfrequently the sheaths belonging to the swords
and daggers have been found in a more or less complete
state of preservation. There is in the National Museum
a remarkably well preserved dagger-sheath, found in
1869 at Dommestorp in Halland, in the same grave as
the remains of woollen stuff already described {see p. 58).
Like many others it is made of wood overlaid with well-
tanned leather, and lined with 6ne skin ; the chape at
the end is of bronze (Fig. 76). A few wooden sword-
sheaths without leather have been found in Danish
graves (see e.g. p. 60) ; they are sometimes decorated
with carved ornaments.
Many handsome battle-axes of bronze have been found
in Sweden. One, decorated with the ornamentation pecu-
liar to the Earlier Bronze Age, is described in Fig. 40.
Even many of the elegant celts (Fig. 57) were, as we
have seen, undoubtedly battle-axes. The axes which wo
* In Denmark ^Jlint weapon of the same form was found, with a
one^dged blade and its point bent back. This peculiar weapon must
be regarded as a copy in flint of a bronze sabre like that found iu
Oster-Gbtland. In these remarkable objects belonging to an early
port of the Bronze Age in the North we have undoubtedly traces of
a more or less direct communication with the civilised lands of the
East, where at this time weapons of a very »iimilar form were u>:ed.
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70 ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVILISATION. [(,'Hap-
mciitioned before as matte of a tliiu plate of bronze cast
over a clay core could not have bceii used as weapons,
because they would obviously ha^-e broken to pieces
with the first blow ; nor could they even have been
carried before some chieftain as a mark of distinction,
because they are so thin and weak that they could not
have stood the shaking. Possibly they were fixed as
standing ornaments, perhaps in some temple.
In order to save the costly material, battle-axes of
stone, and arrow-heads and spear-heads of flint were, as
many finds show, still used during the Bronze Age.
Archers are seen represented on the rock-carvings,
but arrow-heads of bronze have very seldom been found
in Sweden. It was also natural that they should prefer
Hint and bone for weapons so easily lost. Spear-
heads of bronze are not however so rare ; more than
two hundred discovered in Sweden are already known
{see Fig. 77, and Ant. sued.. Figs. 101, 173—177).
The rock-car\-ings show that spears were often used as
missiles.
In speaking of weapons we should aLso mention the
large and handsome war-trumpets of bronze whicH have
been often met with, both in Sweden and Denmark
(Aid. siii-tl. Fig. 178).
Some of the weaj)ons now mentioned, swords for
cxiimple, were obviously intended exclusively for war-
fare ; others might equally well have been used in the
chase. Hunting and fishing were certainly still the most
important occupations of the men in times of peace,
and some bronze hooks have been found which are
singukrly like those in use at the present day (Ant.
su4d., Fig. 202).
We know that pasturage was carried on during the
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11.1 THE BRONZE AGE. 71
Bronze Age, because we not only constantly meet with
the bones of domestic animals in the finds of this period,
but also sometimes come across hides of oxen and cows
(both tanned and untanned), and moreover the wool so
often used for clothes.
Cattle are sometimes found represented on the rock-
carvings, as on one at Tegneby
near Tanum church in Bohusliin.
Two of the animals there repre-
sented are harnessed to a plough,
which is being driven by a work-
man who is walking behind (Fig.
79). AVe have further proof that
tillage was practised during this period in the bronze
sickles (Fig. 80) and the hand-mills which arc sometimes
met with.
Tillage necessarily pre-supposes fixed dwelling-places ;
that these existed is further made probable by the
«^
Fic. 80.— Bronze skklf. SatefmHnl. i.
fact that the barrows of this period so often lie thick
together.
The rock-carvings, which throw so much light on
Swedish civilisation during the Bronze Age, show that
horses were already used for riding and driving. On
one of the remarkable carved stones of the grave at
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ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVILISATION. [ci
FlCR. 81-83. — Parts of a bronze set of hamesi.
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"■] THE BRONZE AGE. 73
Kivik^ there is a representation of a two-wheeletl
chariot with two horses and a driver standing upon it
(Fig. 89). Figs. 81—83 represent a part of a bit and
two bronze plates belonging to a set of harness which,
F((i. 86.
Boats from Tnclc-carvinga in nohui^lliTi.
together with other things of the kind, was found
in Skdne. Two bronze bridles of very nearly the
' At the fishing village of Kivit, on the east const of Skane,
rather more than nine miles north of Simri.Khamn, thei-e is an un-
usually large cairn. In the mi<i<IIe of this, in 1T50, a cist wus
discovered about thirteen and a- half feet long and from three
to four feet broad, formed of flat Ktones placed eiigewise. On the
inside of these are several figures formed by a shallow i
the stone, consisting of men, horses, a chariot, axes, &c.
Dig,, z.d by Google
FiQ. 87.— Rock-carTirg near Baoka. Boh.
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CHAP. II.] THE BRONZE AGE. 75
same kind aa those used at the present day (see Guide
Fig. G8) have quite recently been discovered iu Gotland
in a find belonging to the last part of the Bronze
■Aire.
It is true that in Sweden no boats have been found
Fic. 88,— Rack-carving in Liikebeig id Bohiitliiii.
which certainly belong to the Bronze Age ; but the
rock-carvings can give us some idea both of their
appearance and their size, which seems to have been
often very considerable (Figs. 84 — 88). The boats were
usually unlike at the two ends, but this does not appear
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rti ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVILISATION. [chap
to have been always the case. Wc often see the high
and . narrow stem terminating in an animal's head ;
sometimes the stem also is similarly decorated. As no
indisputable traces of masts and eaila have been found
on the rock-carvings, the boats of the Bronze Age
would seem to have been exclusively designed for
rowing. The same is also the cage, as we sliall presently
see, with the remarkable boat found in the bog at
Nydam in Denmark, which
belongs to an early part of
the Iron Age.
We often find sea-fights
described on the rock-carv-
iugs. We have also proofs of
peaceful intercourse by sea
with other peoples in the many
things imported from foreign
lands which occur in the finds
from the Bronze Age. Chief
among imported goods we
must reckon all the bronze
used in Sweden at this time
regarded as raw material. Probably also most of the
gold used there during the Bronze Age was brought
from other countries.
Besides these we ought also to set down as imports
certain bronze works which are undoubtedly of foreign
origin, because they are very rare in Scandinavia, but
common in other countries. We might adduce as ex-
amples of these the bronze shield from Halland already
mentioned (Fig. 73), a diminutive bronze car found at
Ystad, to which we shall again presently refer (Fig. 91),
some large bronze vases with embossed figures (for one
■ Google
II.] THE BRONZE AGE. 77
of them see Fig. 93), some bronze awords (Fig. 78), &c.
Th€3e foreign bronze works were made in Central Europe
and Italy.
Writing was unknown during the Bronze Age, but
there existed in Sweden during this period a sort of
picture-writing preserved in the rock-carvings, which
have been found most abund-
antly in Bohuslan and Oster-
Gdtland, but also occur in SkS,ne
and some other parts of Sweden
(Figs. 87, 88, 89) ; for the latest
investigations have shown that
these remarkable relics belong
to the time in question. One
of the most important proofs of
this lies in the great, and ob-
viously not accidental, resem-
blance between the usual bronze
swords and those frequently re-
presented on the rock-carvings ^
(Fig. 90). The very fact of the
frequent occurrence of these
swords on the rock-carvings is,
apart from the consideration of
form, a proof that the latter
cannot belong to the Stone Age, fio. eo.— Sword on a rock-
because swords were then un- '""'tf-cot. ^' "'^'
known. Again that they cannot
belong to the Iron Age or to any later time is proved
by the fact that no explanatory notice written either in
runes or any other characters has ever been found upon
* This waa £rst pointed out by the late Royal Antiquarifin, Bror
Emil Hildebmnd.
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T8 ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVILISATION. [,:HAr.
tliora ; the absence of anything of the kind makes it
difficult to suppose that they were cut by a people who
had any knowledge of writing. And the runes wore
known, as we shall presently see, during a great part
of the Iroa Age. Besides, it should be borne in mind
that one of the oldest runic stones in the Nortli was
lately found in Tanum parish in North Bohusliin, a dis-
trict where rock-carvings are more numerous perhaps
than in any other part of Sweden.
The Northmen of the Bronze Age thus understood.
by a kind of pieture-writing, how to preserve the
memory of important events. This circumstance gains
additional weight from the fact that the Aztecs in
Jle.xico (who, in spite of their high civilisation, were ou
the arrival of Cortez completely in their Bronze Ag(^)
possessed a picture-writing, but were not acquainted
with an alpliabot. In Sweden, as in Mexico, there
certainly once e-xisted an oral tradition necessary for its
interpretation. As, however, this tradition has long
died out, there is little hope that any one will be able
to explain the dark speech of our " hill-pietures."
The pictures represented on these rock-earvings do
not certainly point to a very high development of
artistic power. But in order to form a just estimate of
them we must take into account the difficulty of pro-
ducing better figures upon the hard and not very smooth
surface of tlie rock.
The Northmen of the Bronze Age also attempted
to represent living objects in metal work. We have
examples of this in the heads of animals with which
knife handles and other bronze implements often ter-
minated, and with which the handles of golden bowls
were also similarly decorated. We moreover find a
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u.]
THE BRONZE AGE.
79
few knife handles terminating in human figures. A
bronze knife of this last kind was recently found in
Skine (see Guide, Fig. 52).
Considering that there are no written sources, native
or foreign, from which to leam anything of the Bronze
Age-in Sweden, and that the tradition of the existence
ich probafily oi
of such a time has been forgotten, we can hardly expect
to get much Ught thrown on the religion, social con-
dition, or the manners an d customs of that time ./" Some
|thmg8 have \icea found however which were certainTy
/used for religious worship in that AgcT Que of the
K rPTngT-L-iihlp (^f t.h^ se j^ the IJttlc brouzc car rcj^ti ncr^
[oil four wheels, which was found in 1855 in a peat-bog
'/^t2
D,„„.db, Google
ANCIEST SWEDISH CIVILISATION. [cHiP.
ud la now prcsorved in the National Museum"
bronze, as is proved by the still visible rivet holea and
be atiteceduntTy probaTjIc from nie'7i|>par'griV'fo'se'mbla'a'ce
^ in .the forecoiirt of the Temple at Jerusalem.
riew is furtlier confirmed hy the remarkable surround-
ings in which the Mecklenburg car ^vas lound. At
krge barrows very close to one another . In the first of
these the car was found together witb various otl:
four-sided altar comp'
_feet h igh. Built up in this was a large round vessel
of Oiirthenwa
skeleton lay extended in a sort of low cist of baked
clay, like those which are found in the great cemetery
at Hallstatt in Austria, dating from the end ol the
lirouze Age.
Agey
es'lilie ea
'BesiJes'lilie ciir ^rom istad, another remarkable relic'
bronze, which was also probably used for temple
worship, is preserved in the National Museum. It is a
great crown-like ornament, which was found in 1847 in
I peat-bog at Balk^kra, near Lund in SkSne. It was
'prnlinhly pii nmi^piPntnl TYiniintinfT wliirh )ind ■tli rroimdedj
{ a large sacrificial vessel of wood {Ant, sitid, Fig. 254^^
Several other discoveries of religious vessels have been
made in other places in the North. For instance a
large and beautiful bronze vase was found in 1862 in
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II.] THE BRONZE AGE. 81
a peat-bog at Ednninge, in the island of Fyen' ; inside
were eleven gold vessels with long handles. They belong
to the later part of the Bronze Age, and were undoubt-
edly used in some temple, because they appear to
be too precious to have been employed for private or
secular purposes. In Sweden also a few similar gold
Fio. 92.— Gold vessel. Blek. i.
vessels have been found, but without handles {Fig. 1)2) :
and in 1886 a large bronze vase was also dug up in ;i
peat-bog at Hedeskoga, in South Skilne (Fig. 93),
in form, size, and ornamentation exactly like that found
at Ronninge.
It is possible that the beautiful hanging vessels of
bronze, which are found in very great numbers (Fig. 95),
were used as lamps' In temples or private dwellings.
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82 ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVILISATION. [chap.
Dome-shaped covers belonging to vessels of this kind
are often found with them (Fig. 94).
The Danish antiquarian Worsaae has called attention
to the many interesting finds of the Bronze Age made
in the peat-bogs. He considers that their explanation
should be sought in some religious use, and he believes
that they, as well as those great finds of the Earlier Iron
" Age, made also in the Danish peat-bogs, were originally
offerings to the gods.
We have already seen that the dead were buried un-
bumt during the earlier part of the Bronze Age, but
that they were burnt during the later part of that
period (see p. 47).
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THE BRONZE AGE,
Flo. 04.— CoTsr to broniB-Teanel (Fig. 96).
Fio. B5,— Bronw hangiiig-Tesaol, V.-Giitl. J.
G 2
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84 ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVILISATION. [chap.
The unburnt bodies were usually laid in cists com-
posed of flat stones placed edgewise, and covered with
similar stones. In some parts of the North, especially in
Jutland, coffins have been found made out of cloven
and hollowed oak-tninka {see pp. 59, 60).
Those stone cists which contain several skeletons, and
are often very large, appear to be the oldest ; others are
smaller, many only about six feet long, and contain a
single extended skeleton. Some of these stone cists (as
that at Hvideg5rd, for example, described below) even
though of a full man's length, contain, strangely
enough, no traces of an unburnt body, but only burnt
bones. These probably belong to the beginning of the
time when bodies were burnt. The remains of the
burnt bodies when collected from the pyre were still
often deposited in stone-cists. But these gradually
became smaller and smaller, till at last we find them
only about a foot long ; there was no reason why they
should be larger. Not unfrequently the burnt bones do
not lie immediately in these small stone-cists, but in an
earthenware vessel, which in that case is closely sur-
rounded by the stones of the cist Again the burnt
bones often lie in earthenware vessels, without any such
cist. Lastly, we sometimes find graves of the Bronze
Age made up entirely of collections of burnt bones lying
buried in the ground, and only covered by a flat stone
(see Fig. 96). It is probable that these different kinds of
graves actually followed each other in the order in which
we have described them. Thus they form a gradual
transition from the great grave chambers, and the stone
cists with their many skeletons, of the Stone Age on
the one side, to the insignificant graves with burnt bones
at the end of the Bronze Age on the other.
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J,.] THE BRONZE AGE. 85
The graves of the Bronze Age were usually covered
with a barrow, which was made either chiefly of sand
and earth, or of nothing but loose stones.^ The same
barrow very often contained several graves. The bar-
rows are generally situated upon some height which
commands an unimpeded view over the sea or some
laige lake. The cairns especially were often built up
Pio. 96.-— SectioQ ot a burow at Dbmineatorp in South Holland.
on a high hUl, sometimes at a long distance from the
present village.
Often, but not always, weapons, ornaments, &c., are
found by the remains of the dead in graves of this
period. In graves which contain unbumt bodies, we
* The barrows formed of stones are called cajms (•(enrosea or
ttenkuimmei). Some of them do not however belong to the Bronze
Age, but to other periods of heathen times. Often it is impossible
to decide, without knowing their contents, to ivbat period they
belong.
^ In the middle of the bottom of the barrow wits a stone cist
nearly seren feet long (a), containing an unbumt body and n
bronze pin. Higher up were found three small stone cists contaiu-
ing burnt bones and antiquities of bronze. Close by the little cist
at the top of the barrow stood a vessel filled with burnt bones, and
near the cist marked 6 lay a heap of bornt bones, covered only by a
flat stone.
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ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVILISATION.
[tHAF,
^U't.
not unfrequently find, just as in those of the Stone and
Iron Ages, vessels of earthenware, and sometimes of
wood,^ which posBibly once contained food. The graves
of the later part of the Bronze Age' do not appear to
contaiD so many and so costly articles of bronze as those
of the earlier part ; it
has been noticed par-
ticularly that weapons
are comparatively sel-
dom found in them.
The earthenware
vessels, in which the
burnt bones were laid,
had frequently a bowl-
shaped cover (Fig. 97).
Most of them were un-
doubtedly used chiefly
as burial-urns, which
explains their simple
form and lack of or-
nament. It seems to
make burial-urns coarse
Fio. 97.— BoTud-nin with handle. Hall, j.
customary to
have been
a nd plain. ^
J One of the most remarkable discoveries m the graved
of the Bronze Age yet known in the Morih was made
in 1845, in a barrow at Hvidega.rd, not far from
Copenhagen. In a stone cist of a full man's length,
there wsw lying upon an animal's hide a heap of human
bones, wrapped in a woollen mantle. By the side of j
' A. few wooden bowls made with a tuming-latbe were found ia
Danish graves ; they are ornamented with small and delicate pins
made of tin. Two wooden boxes were discovered in the oak tree-
coffin in Treenhiji described above on p. 59.
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u.] THE BRONZE AGE. «7
these lay a bruu^ti BWOPd In its alieatli, a little bronze '
brooch, and also a leathern case containing the following \
somewhat miscellaneous collection : a piece of an amber I
bead, a small Mediterranean shell, a die made of deal, 1
the tail end of a snake, a bird's claw, the lower jaw |
of a young squirrel, some very small stones, a small pair
of tweezers, two bronze knives, and a spear-head of flint.
This last had a piece of gut sewn round it in such a
way that it could not be uncovered. The two bronze
knives were also wrapped in leather. We can hardly
be wron g in supposing that the dead m an w aa eithor j
.doctor or a magician, or possibly both.J
/We have seen tbat dunng the Wtone Age scarc ely^
more than Uotalaod ana some parta of Svealaml vvjuai^.
nhabited. 'i'iie bMH Of llllj Bronze Age may be said to
be conlin ed withm about tlie same Hinite. The southern
provinces ot tne country, especially ijkdne. continued to
be much more thick ly populate d than the middle of _
Sweden. iMs is provea irom tne tact tliat, as far as we
_yet know, in every square mile on an average, at leaaT
twenty times as many bronze things of this peri od
have been found in Sk&ne as in the rest of Sweden
gouth of the river Dal-Etf;;
[I'be whole number of bronze antiquities from Sweden
belon^ng to this period, as yet known, is about 4,0 00 ;
of these only a little more ttian 2QQ were found in 8vea- /
land. From the whole of Norrland. which had no con'-'f
aiderable population until the Iron Age, only very few]
antiquitie s ot the iironzc A^o a re_k ])owD. hut' t*
_ ^Dem~were tound aa iar north as Medelpad. One is
^ markably well preserved bronze aword, found in Nju mndi
the other a celt (Fig. .'iG) found in__Timi
a rei
TindiiJ
■'i in .i;U
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ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVIUSATION.
Bronze Age ended much later than in Scandinavia.
When the Europeans began their conqueeta in Mexico
three hundred and seventy years ago, the Aztecs were
living in a complete Bronze Age, without any know-
ledge of iron. And yet in many respects their civilisation
was as high as that of which Europe could boast in the
middle ages.
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CHAPTER in.
THE IRON AGE.
iFntm Ihe Fifth OentuTy b.o. to iJu latCtr half of the Blevmlh Omkiry a.d.)
By " The Iron Age " is understood, as we have
already seen, that part of heathen times in which iron
was known. We might certainly say, if we regarded
only the proper meaning of the words, that the Iron
Age is even now still going on ; but for the antiquarian's
purposes the Iron Age in Sweden ends with the victory
of Christifuiity over the Asa-gods.
During the Iron Age the inhabitants of Sweden
became first acquainted with iron, silver, brass, lead,
glass, stamped coins (of foreign production), and learnt
the art of soldering and gilding metal, Ac, &c. And
as works of iron could not, like those of bronze, be
produced only by casting, the smith's craft came to
have far greater significance than it had had during the
Bronze Age. But of the new discoveries of this period
one of the most important was the art of writing, which
the inhabitants of the Korth seem to have acquired soon
after the beginning of the Christian era. The earliest
alphabetical symbols in Sweden — indeed the only ones
used in that country daring the whole of heathen times
' — were the runes.
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90 ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVILISATION. [chap.
The large number of foreign coins which occur in
finds of the Iron Age in the North, and a thorough study
of the graves aud antiquities of the same Age, have made
it possible to distinguish what belong to the different
parts of so long a period. At present we must however
confine our attention to the four great main divisions :
A. The first part of the Earlier Iron Age, which
includes the time from the fifth century B.c. to
about tlie beginning of the Christian era.
B. The second part of the Earlier Iron Age, from
about the beginning of the Christian era to the
beginning of the fifth centuiy A.D.
C. The first part of the Later Iron Age, from the
beginning of the fifth to the beginning of the
eighth century a.d,
D. The second part of the Later Iron Age, from the
beginning of the eighth to the latter half of the
eleventh century.
In every one of these divisions we can distinguish at
least what belongs to the former and what to the latter
half of the period.
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THE IRON AGE.
A. — The First Part of the Earlier Iron Age.
(From the Fifth Century B.C to ahout the beginning of the Chrittian Era.)
It waa long supposed that the Iron Age in the North
did not begin before the Christian era. The latest in-
vestigations have however shown that iron was known
there much earlier. This we can hardly wonder at,
considering that the new metal had, since before 500
years B.C., been in use among the Celtic peoples in
Central Europe, with whom the Teutonic inhabitants
of North Germany and Scandinaria had long had
intercourse.
JLn Celtic countries the transition between the Bronze
[and tbe Iron Ages, including the earliest part of the
Iron Age, is usually called the " Hallstatt Period,"
while a later part of the Earlier Iron Age in these .
Pcountries is usually called the " T^ne Period."|
tMany circumstances show that the first introductic
of iron in the North coincides with the latter part ot the
Hallstatt period. Among other relics of the first part
of the Swedish Iron Age we have collars, like those in
Figs. 99 and lOo' and round brooches like that in
Fig. 98. The last are copies of a kind of brooch which
is often found in Celtic graves of the Hallstatt period.
The material of which they are made is certainly of the
nature of bronze, but of a diflferent mixture from that
usual during the Bronze Age r it contains both lead and
zinc [and is therefore properly speaking brass"]. That
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ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVILISATION.
Fio. 88 a, i.— Bronze brooch with
Fio. e».— Branie collar, Gotl. j.
Fig. 100.— Bronie collar with a joint Gotl. }.
D,;inzsd=vCOOgle
THE IRON AGE.
Fio. 102.— Iron knife. V.-Qotl. |.
Fio. 103.— Iron ;!Ih^ Boh, }.
FiQ. lOi. —Bronze JHula. ).
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AJ-6r
94 ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVILISATION. [caw.
I they do not belong to the ^feroaze Age, but to a time 1
I when iron was in use, is further proved from the facty
^that the pins are always of irou.|
Every yearwu uru alilts U) I'STognize more and more
Northern antiquities which have forms peculiar to the
T6ne period or contemporary with it Among objects
characteristic of this time are swords with both blades
and sheaths made of iron, like Fig. 101 ; thin crescent-
shaped knives, like Fig. 102 ; fhvlee, often made of
..^^
Fio. lOS.— Bronie collw, with a joint. J and \.
iron, like Figs. 103, 104; collars, like 105, 107; and
decorative plates of iron overlaid with bronze, like
Fig. 106.
Many of these were found in graves containing burnt
bones lying either in an earthenware urn, or laid in a
little heap in the ground together with black mould.
Graves of the latter kind are known as brandpletter.^
The graves of this period are thus like those of the end
I On the island of Bomholm the Amtman Yedel diwovered about
2,500 brandpletter and thereby made a valuable contribution to our
knowledge of the earliest part of the Iron Age in the North.
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hl]
THE IKON AGE.
Fio. 106.— Iron pUt« for belt (!) OTerlaid with bronze, 0,-GotI, },
Fio. 107.— Bronze collar. V.-Gotl j.
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9(1 ANCIENT SWEDISH CITIUSATION. [chap.
of the Bronze Age, which also contaiQ burnt bones
either laid in an earthenware urn or put together in
a heap.
This resemblance between the graves of the end of
the Bronze Age and the beginning of the Iron Age, in
conjunction with other circumstances, makes it more
than probable that the first introduction of iron in the
North was not connected with any immigration of a
new people.
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THE IRON AGE.
B,— The Second Part of the Earlier Iron Age.
{From about the beginning of the Chnamn Era to tlie beginning uf the Fijth
Cenluiy &.D.)
The autiquitics of tliia pftriotl, even those wliich wc
must believe to be of native workmanBhip, are generally
remarkable for their chaste "and delicate ornaments. The
cause of this must be sought undoubtedly in the great
influence which Boman culture exercised in the North at
this time. It is true that Romau armies never reached
as far as Sweden, because the defeat of Varus in the
Teutoburg Forest put .an end for ever to the attempts
of the Roman emperors to subdue the mighty Teutonic
races. But by the peaceful ways of commerce the
influence of Rome penetrated even to the people of the
North. Great numbers of Roman coins have been found
buried in Sweden, and also vessels of bronze and glass,
weapons, &c., as well as works of art, all turned out of
Roman workshops. These show that the ancestors of the
Swedes had, during the first centuries of the Christian
era, constant, even though not direct, communication
with the foremost nation of their time.
But when we speak of " Roman workshops," we must
not be supposed to mean that they were necessarily in
Rome itself. Most of the Boman works found in the
North, except the coins, certainly originated from the
provinces of the empire. The Roman provinces which
lay nearest to Scandinavia during tlic first centuries of
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ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVILISATION.
[m
our era were what is now England, the Netherlands, the
part of Germany west of the Rhine, and that which is
south of the Danube, as well as large districts of Austria
and Hung ary.
nV'tTi very tew exceptions' the oldest coins lound inj
t Sweden at present known are koman, and by far the
I most of these are the silver coins known as denarii, which
fare rather larijer than an English fourpenny piece, and|
( were struck during the two first centuries of our era] In
Fig. 108 we see a coin of tLis
sort stamped with the head
of Antoninus Pius, fatruck
shortly after the emperor's
death, which happened in
161 A.D.° It was found in
the spring of the year 1871,
together with a large number
of other Roman silver coins struck between 54 and 211
A.D. They were found near the surface of the ground,
ill ploughing up a newly cultivated field at Hagestad-
borg in the parish of Loderup, in the south-east of
Skine. Five hundred and fifty of the coins, weighing
together 3lbs, , 9oz. , were bought for the National
Historical Museum. This is the largest hoard of the
kind known in the whole of Scandinavia, if we except
Gotland. Upon this island in 1842 at Kams, in Lummc-
lunda parish, about (100 Roman silver coins were found
F On" the
island of Gotia
1.1 two Miicedonian coios (of Kine
pi;iiiiLrr.i.n
n<J one Creek coi
On the reverse side the pyre is figiireil, on which the emperor's
body was burned.
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III.]
THE IRON AGE.
belonging to tlie same period (the first aiul secooil
centuries a.i>.) ; and, while cleaning out a ditch in a field
at Sindarfve, in Hemse parish, in 1870, some men came
across about 1,500 silver coins of this kind preserved in
an earthen crock. All these coins, as indeed most of
the other Roman silver coins found in the North, were
m uch worn ; th ey weighed altoget her aliotit ftUbs.
|\Ve must specially notice ihe fact that the hoard at'
Hagestadborg was found on the furtlieat south-easterly
point of Skine, the part of the mainland of Sweden lying
nearest to Bomholm and the north of Germany ; here
too Roman coins have been often found before. This
fact is particularly important, because tlic south-east of
Skdne, Bomholm, Oland and Gotland are the parts
the North where incomparably the most Roman coins
^k
the first two centuries a.d. have been found.lj
i
To this we must add that large hoards of the same
coins have been found at the mouth of the Vistula, and
along the lower part of its course in Prussia, in Silesia
near the Oder, and in Galicia. All this makes it more
than probable that at least the greater number of the
Roman coins of this time which came to the North were
brought thither by commerce from the south-east along
the valleys of the Vistula and the Oder.
Probably the same is true also of many of the other
Roman works fonnd in Scandinavia. Some of the coins
and other objects however undoubtedly came horn the
south-west, from the Roman provinces on the Rhine.
■ Ont of about 4,760 Aoman coina of this time at present kuown
from Sweden, no less than 4,000 were found in the isluad of Gotlnnct,
90 in Oland, 650 in Sk&ne, but only 23 on the mainland of Sweden,
excluding SkAne. Besides these about 250 were found in Bomholm,
and 600 in other parts of Denmark, but only 3 in Norway.
%.
■ft
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100 ANCIENT HWKDTSH CIVILISATION. [cHAr.
Oil the Other hand the intercourse between Sweden and
England during this period cannot have been very active.
Ujtoii some of the Roman works found in Swedish
and Danish soil we can still see the trade-mark, with the
name of the factory or maker described usually in full.
A bronze scoop with a trade-mark of this sort was found
Fia. 109.— DroDie vi
in 1828, together with an iron axe, in a barrow at
Kungsgirden, in the parish of Hog in north Helsing-
land ; ' and quite lately an iron sword was found in
1 Id Jutland a bronze scoop was found with the Roman name of
the maker ; the same name occurs again on four other scoops foanil,
one in Hanover, two in England, and the fonrth in Switzerland.
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ui.] THE IRON AGE. 101
Oster-Gotland witli the letters MARCIM inscribed upon
the blade (Fig. 113).
One of the most remarkable finds of Eoman works
hitherto known in Sweden, was made in the year 1818
at Fycklinge in Bjorksta parish, in the south-east of
VeBtmanland. Here was found in a barrow a large
bronze vase filled with burnt bones {Fig. 109), and on it
the following inscription :—APOLL INI. GRANNO.
DONVM. AMMILLIVS. CONSTANS. PR^F.
TEMPLI. IPSIVS. VSLLM.,' which means that the
vase was dedicated to Apollo
Grannus by Ammillius Constans,
the warden of his temple. How
and when was this precious vessel
brought from the Roman temple,
to be used as a cinerary urn in
a Swedish barrow, far away in a *'"'Jilorm^ "sm!""
distant village of Vestmanland 1
Roman bronze vessels without inscriptions are fre-
quently met with in Sweden, from Sk&ne as fur as
Medelpad, as well as in the inlands of Oland and
Gotland. Many of them were found in graves.
An unusually large and valuable find of Roman
antiquities was made in 1872 near Abekis, a fishing
village on the south coast of Sk&ne, west of Ystad.
Here they found in a grave with the remains of a burnt
body a large bronze vessel with two movable handles,
a scoop with a bronze strainer belonging to it, two glass
beakers (Fig. 112) and also pieces of an earthen vessel,
of a coat of mail (Fig. 110), of iron weapons, of fine
wool, Ac, &c. (see Ant. sited., Figs. 373, 376, and 384).
* ApoUiui . . . Fnefecluii tompli ipeius vuliiiu solvit libciilissimo
merit o.
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lOi ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVIUSATION. IcoAe.
The bronze and glass vessels at any rate, and probably
the coat of mail, arc Roman work.
In 1837 some people who were engaged in harvesting
at Osby, iu the parish of Grasgdrd in Oland, found
a bronze statuette of Juno llin. high (Guide, Fig.
113). This beautiful figure probably dates from the
latter part of the second century
A.D. In the same Lsland a leg
belonging to another bronze stat-
uette has also been found, besides
a bull of massive bronze. The
latter, which weighs about 91bs.,
13oz., they found in 1845 while
ploughing a field at Lilla Fro in
Resmo parish ; in its middle there
is a large quadrangular hole (see
Ant. sued., Fig. 370). We also
know of one Roman bronze sta-
tuette from Upland (Fig. Ill);
it was found in the Fysing Lake.
Besides the two just mentioned
from Abek^, Roman glass beakers
bclongiug to the time in question,
have been found in many other
places in Sweden, in Sk&ne,
Flu. 111.— Ronmn ifna,- Bohuslan, Vester- Gotland, Upland,
Medelpad, Oland, and Gotland.
. We ought also to regard as Roman works a large
number at any "rate of the many glass beads of the Iron
Age found in Svsedish graves. Several of them have
remarkably beautiful figures of many colom^, Roman
works decorated with enamel have also been sometimes
found ill Sweden {see Guide, Fig. 81).
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m] THE IRON AGE. 103
la Other parte of Scandinavia also, and CBpeeially in
Denmark, a large number of Roman works of the first
few centuries have been found ; such as, for example,
vessels of bronze, silver, glass, and earthenware, bronze
statuettes, a small bronze mirror, glass beads, and iron
weapons. Of the latter we may specially mention a
bronze belmet, the boss of a shield with the owner's
F«i. 112.— Glass betker, of Boinui workmuiahip. OL i
name in Roman letters, iron sword blades with Eomi
trade-marks, coats of mail, &c.
But besides all these objects of Roman, workmansh
. the finds of the earlier Iron Age contain many differe
objects which were obviously made in the North, thou^
they often show clearly the influence of Roman ipode.
We may regard as native works of this time, for instance.
I =v Google
ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVILISATION.
[CB
large number of weapons, gold rings, bracelets (Fig, 114),
buckles, and other ornaments, earthen vessels, and some
well-built boats found in a Danish peat bog, Ac., Ac.
The finds of this age contain also a large number
of tools and implements, such as anvils, tongs,
sledges, hammer8,axes,
1 punches, gimlets, awls,
scissors, knives, scra-
pers, planes, and files
— alt of iron ; and also
rivets, nails, one cru-
cible, &c.
The weapons are
mainly of the same
kinds as under the
Bronze Age, but of
different forms. The
swords are designed
for cutting and not
only for thrusting ;
they are therefore pro-
vided with a cross-
guard, which is how-
evershort. Theblades,
always of iron, have
sometimes one, some-
times two edges. They
are not unfrequently
chased, and often made
y which betokens a high degree of skill. The
)art of the hilt is almost always made of wood
; sometimes overlaid with bronze or silver ;
illy it is entirely of bronze.
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ui.] THE lEON AGE. 105
Remains of sword sheatha are often found ; 8ome few
have been preBerved whole. They are made of wood
with chapes of metal or ivoiy. The leather belts from
which the swords were hung have also been found in
Danish peat-bogs. On one of them a dolphin and other
figures had been very tastefully embroidered, as shown by
Fid. 114.^ Siiiral gold bracelet. Ol. {.
the holes of the stitches still clearly visible. This too
betokens a Koman influence.
The spear or lance appears to have been a still com-
moner weapon than the sword. Both the iron heads
axid the wooden shafts, which were sometimes as much
as eleven feet long, are found preserved. In those
used as missiles the centre of gravity was often marked
by driving in a tack or tying round a piece of string, in
order that the thrower might quickly and easily poise
the spear in his hand.
Wc find not only the heads of arrows, usually of
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lOtJ ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVILISATION. [chap.
iron, but also several shafts aud bows. The latter are
made of wood about six feet long, and are exactly like
the bows still used by several non-European peoples.
Bows with a ^^tock, like the cross-bows of the Middle
Age.s, were unknown in Sweden in heathen times,
Tlie arrows had wooden shafts from two to three
k-iit long ; at their butt end we see traces of four rows
of feathfi-3 whith were bound with pitched thread. The
mark of the owner was often cut on the shaft in order
that he might easily recognize his weapon again ; some
of those marks are evidently runes.
Besides these a quiver was once found made entirely
of wood, and large enough to hold some score of
arrows, and also a few mountings of brass belonging to
other quivers of the same kind.
Fig. 115 represents a horn belonging to this period
found in a peat-bog iu Siidermanland. The middle
portion of it is made of an ox-horn, of which only pait
remains; broad mountings of bronze are fixed to l>oth
ends.
The shields were round and flat, aud were made by
joining together several thin planed pieces of wood.
The diameter varies from two to about four feet. Round
the edge there is sometimes a fine rim of bronze, or
occasionally of silver. In the middle there is a hole for
the handle ; the hand was protected \>y a boss of iron,
bronze, silver, or wood, fastened over the hole (see
Guide, Fig. 116, and A?U. sued., 289, 290).
Besides shields we now find also other defensive
weapons, namely, the coats of mail already mentioned,
which were probably of Eoman origin, and helmets. A
Roman bronze helmet was discovered in a peat-bog at
Thorsbjcrg in South Jutland. And in the same bog was
I =v Google
THE IRON AGE.
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108 ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVILISATION. (chap.
also found a beautiful helmet of silver, overlaid with
gold. It was evidently of " barbarian," that is to say-
uot RomaD, workmanship. It ia to be seen on
Fig. 116.
It is mainly through the unexpected and lucky dis-
coveries in some Danish peat-bogs that we have got to
know the state of civilisation in the North during the
curlier Iron Age. Through the wonderful power which
peat possesses of preserving even the most delicate and,
under ordinary circumstances, most perishable materials,
we have here an opportunity of getting to know such
things as their clothes and their wooden implements,
&e. It is by the help of these finds, and especially those
in the peat-bogs of Thorsbjcrg and Nydam in South
Jutland, that we have been able to give such a picture of
a Northern warrior of about 300 a.d. as we see in Fig.
116. Every line of this picture. is true to history,
because both clothes, weapons, and ornaments are
exactly copied from what has been actually found in
these two bogs.
The clothes are made of wool ; the weaving, which is
finer than was usual during the Bronze Age, seems to be
a sort of diaper-work, often in a check pattern. The
most important garments are a long jacket, with sleeves
reaching to the wrists, and breeches which are fastened
round the waist with a strap (not shown in the drawing),
and sewn on to a pair of socks below. The outer- cloth-
ing of the feet consists of a kind of leather sandals,
decorated with fine tooled ornaments. A woollen mantle
with a long fringe below ia thrown over the shoulders.
One of the mantles found in the bog at Thorsbjerg had
preserved its colour; it w;is green, with yellow and
dai'k-grcen borders.
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THE IRON AGE.
Fio. 118.— Northi^ra warrior of nUut 300 A.n.
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no ANCIENT SWEDISH CTVILISATEON. [chap.
We aho see on Fig. 116 almost all the weapons
lately described : a helmet of silver-gilt ; a coat of mail
composed of iron rings, and
decorated on the breast with
two beautiful round plates of
bronze and silver-gilt ; a
wooden shield with a boss
and rim of metal ; a sword,
liow and arrows, and tlie
quiver hanging on the back.
The clothes were usually
fastened together during the
Iron Age with pins or JibulcB,
and not, as now, with but-
tons or hooks. A beautiful
Fio.n7.-fjWa^of.iim-fiiU. ^^^,,;„ ^^ ^ ^^^ commoii
during this period is seen in
Fig. 117. Fig. 118 represents a buckle belonging to a
belt. The ornaments worn at this time were rings,
pendants, &c., of gold (Figs. 114, 119, 120) ; beads of
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ui.] THE IRON AGE. HI
gold, glass, amber, Ac. On the other hand the bronze
collars, so abundant during the last part of the Bronze
Age, had by this time almost entirely disappeared.
Gold collars are also vei-y scarce. Silver, so universal
during the later Iron Age, was still used very little.
Among articles of toilette we might also mention
of bone, small silver boxes, probably used for
ointments, and small tweezers and ea r-picks usually
of bronze, but occasionally of silver. /'Such tweezcrs/1
/'sometimes joined to an ear-pick by a little ring, went)
I probably use<l instead of razors to rem ove thc_b&ard../
We now meet with a novelty among sewing imple-
ments in the shape of scissors, which, as we have already
seen, are never found in graves or hoards of the Bronze
Age. The scissors of the Iron Age are, like our ordinary
shears, always made of a single piece.
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112 ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVILISATION. [uHap.
Of housobolJ gtMJils we now meet for the firat time
vnlh spoons and drinking horns ; at any rate there arc
none known of the Bronze Age. The spoons were usually
made of wood ; but in a Danish grave a silver spoon was
found, probably of Roman origin. The parts of the
drinking horns best-preserved are, as we might have ex-
[Mjcted, the mouthpieces and tips of bronze, but some-
times traces of the horn itself are stUl found ; it seems to
have generally been an ordinary ox -horn. These, like
Fi<i. 121. — Silver cup [mrtly gilded. Deumark i-
other vessels, used often to follow the dead into the grave.
Strangely enough we not uufrequently find remains of
tivo horns in the same grave, though only one body
seems to have been buried there. In Denmark and
Norway some costly glass drinking vessels were found
shaped like horns.
Besides horns, a number of other vessels of this
period have been found, partly of Roman work-
D,g,,z.d by Google
1II.J THE IRON AGE. 113
nianship, mmle of glass, bronze, silver (Fig. 121) and
especially wood (Fig. 122) and earthenware. The last,
which must have been in almost all cases made in the
country, are generally much finer, thinner, and better
baked than those of the Bronze Age ; the shape is often
Fiii. 122. — Woodan bucket with brome pUtings. Norway J.
very graceful (Fig. 123). Like those of the two earlier
periods, they are never glazed.
We often find by the drinking vessels in graves of
both the earlier and later Iron Age, a sort of draughts
and dice. The former are made of bone, glass, amber or
earthenware ; tliey arc round, flat on the under side, but
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ANCIENT SWEDISH C(VIUSATION.
[t-BAr.
t^att
convex a bove. /The dice are either much like those used \
in the present'day, or of a longer and narrower shape. |
The sides are marked with the numbers irom 1 to 6.
Large pieces of the boards marked with checks were odcc I
found in a Danish peat -bop; among other relica of this J
"Native coins of this Age have not yet been discovered
in any Northern land ; the first in Sweden were struck
by Olaf Skotkonung, at the end of the heathen times.
Fio. 123.-~Eartheliw*resi
Gotl. |.
ArVe have already spoken of the Roman coins of the first
two centuries found in this country. For payment they
sometimes used those coins, sometimes worked or un-
worked gold and silver by weight. Small bronze
balances have been found in graves of the earlier
Iron Age ; these are probably of Roman origin,
because they are exactly like those which the Romans
used. They also resemble those in use at the present
day,.consisting of a balance with a scale hanging fixim
either end.
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HI.] THE IRON AGE. 116
.The foreign coins as well as the many other objects
from foreign countries found in the North show that
the commerce and communication with other lands
during the Earlier Iron Age must have been very
considerable.
The usual method of travelling by land was riding on
horseback ; the wares were carried on pack-horses.
Bridles {see Ant. suSd, Figs. 297-9), spurs {see Guide,
Fig. 77), and other things of the sort belonging to this
time, have been often found ; but stirrups do not appear
to have come into use till the Later Iron Age. We
get representations of carts in Sweden, even of the
Bronze Age, as we have already seen ; and in some
Danish finds of the Earlier Iron Age, some very well
pr eserved carts have been act ually found.
^)ne of the most remarkable finds of the Earlier Ir
Age was that made in 1863, in the peat-bog ofNydam in
South Jutland, already mentioned. There were found
two " clinch-built " boats, with Koman coins of the second
century A.D., and a large number of other things from
the Earlier Iron Age, of which most had obviously been
placed in the boat. One of the boats was made of oak
(Fig. 124), the other of pine. They were large and
open, pointed at both ends, designed only for rowing,
with no trace of a mast. Both boats differ from those
now generally in use, by the peculiar way in which
the planks are fastened to the ribs. The oak boat,
which is remarkable for its very supple and graceful
form, is 78 ft. between the high points at the stem and
stem, and 10 ft. 9 in. btoad^nidships ; it was rowed
with fourteen pairs of oars. ^/These arc exactly like those
still used in the North, and are lift. 2 in. long/- The/
rudder is narrow, and was fastened to oue side of the I
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ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVILISATION.
Dig,, z.d by Google
iil] the iron AUE. 117
boat near the atem end. Other thiiig.s found bc-loiijfjujr)
bo boats, were a large iron anchor^ two acooija. Ac.]
During the later part of the heathen times the boats
were always drawn up on land for the winter, or when
they were not wanted for some time. The boats found
at Nydam have holes at the ends, for the rope by whi(;h
they were hauled on land.
In a peat-bog at Fiholm in Vestmanland, some remains
of a boat were found not many years ago, which seems
to have been built in the same way as those we have
just described.
The runes used during tlie earlier and middle parts
of the Iron Age are generally known as the Earlier
Runes, and are very distinct from the LattT Ilunes
found upon the runic stones, which are so common,
especially in the district of the Miilar Lake. Upon a
gold " bracteate " (Fig. 131) found near Vadstena, and
belonging to the fifth century A.D., we find the whole
set' of the Earlier Runes iirranged in the following
way: —
rni»pR<xp:H + u -J* BY^itSMMro st.
f u th a r k </ w : h n ij(<t) '^ p -r s : t h e in I nr; o
■ U'he expresai'ou' " Rii'iiic"'ari)liatot
I r-"-" — " " ""' '" J "'■' -" t
the mncB are not, like the (irppV. T.n.t.in. n nd moJoi'D .alpliiilnjls.
arranged bo na to begin with A, B, correspond ing, of course, to tlig
Greek_!ialpba " and "beta." from which t^^^ y^^j] " nljilinlii' t'_^ig
* The rones P and p probably represented the same sound as t)ii
English CA in " that" and the English lo. The rune f is at thii
period used as a final letter; its original sound was g, but by i
change in the language itnelf it afterward:) becnnie r.
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ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVILISATION.
[«P
Besides the runes stamped on this ornament some
others also occur during the period in question, as for
example p^ = d.
/A glance at these symbols is enough to show tucir
j close relationship to the Latin letters, at any rate In
/ their earliest forms. ttl<H I ^T&5t are found
almost unchanged in the Latin DRCHISTBO,
which represent the same sounds as the corresponding
runes, the Latin C being pronounced hard like K.
I Many of the other runes also, if closely examined,
will be seen to be not unlike the equivalent Latini
letters; for example the runes fl and T are the inverted
Latin U and L, and so forth. By a careful comparison
we find too that the runes show a nearer relationship to
the Latin alphabet than to any other. In most eases,
where the runes differ from the Latin letters, the
difForence can be explained from the fact that the former
1 seem to have been originally designed for earviug on
wood. This made it necessary to avoid all horizontal
strokes, because being with the grain of the wood, they
would esisily become obliterated. Also curved lines
I could only be produced on wood with difficulty. The
\ earliest runes therefore consist only of perpendiculnr and
slantinp; strokes.
[Tiie latest investigations have proved that the runes /
a rose from an alteration oi the liatin letters. Fro-
bably they were invented a little before the Christian
I era by a South Teutonic tribe, in imitation of the Roman
I writiu", which the Teutons received from one of tha
\ Kelt ic tribes living just to the n orth of the Alpsi
The earliest known runic inscriptions of which we can
determine the date are those found upon some weapons
and tools belonging to those great finds in the Danish
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HI.] THE IRON AGE. lltf
bogs already described. Their date is about 300 A.n.
We also know of many Swedish inscriptions with the
earlier runes belonging to this time and the foUowiiig
centuries.
They are found on fourteen stones,' on a buckle of
silver-gilt from Ethelhem in Gotland (Figs. 136, 137),
on an amulet (?) of bone from a bog at Lindholni in
Skane, on the remarkable gold bracteate from Vadstena
just described, and also upon twenty-six other gold
bracteates from SkSjie, Blekiiig, Holland, Vester-G6t-
landj and the island of Gotland. A runic stone from
Tanum in North Bohuslan is given in Fig. 125. The
inscription runs as follows :—THRAWINGAN HAI-
TINAR WAS, — which means, " (The stone) was called
Thrawinge'a."
Ifnscriptions with the early runes are also founJ~i
^No rway on stone s, gold bractea tes, Ac., and in Denmark ,
upon the boss of a shield, tlie chape of a swo rd-sheath ,
on some arrows, a"planc7*a" ^oWTiorii, a gold ring, a
comb, as' we'lT"'ag^ir'aome JHulce and gold bracteates.
Thev occiir also irr Erl^FanH "in great n umbers, fn Trance
(Burgu ndy), in German ;^ in WaUachia (upon a large !
massive gold ring^, and the west of Russia. All belong |
\ t 6 about the same date, and are of 'l\'iil.niiic. orif rin}
ffhe fact that runic inscriptions are found not only oin
the memorial stones raised over. departed relatives, biitl
also on many things connected with daily life^ such '■
1 Five of these Btonee with early ruDcs are in Bleking (viz. at
Bjorketorp, Gommor, Istaby, Stentoflen, and SSlvesborg), two in
BobusliiD (at Tanum and Bafsal), one in Vermland (at Tarnum, near
Kristinebamn), one in Vester- Gotland (at VSnga), one Oater-Gbtland
in the chnrcbyard at Rok, two in SiJdermanland (at Berga and
Skliing,) and two in Uplnnd (at Mcijebro in Haghy parish and
Krogstad).
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tM ANCIENT SWEDISH CI\nLISATluS. (.ha
■jrii amciita, weapons, and tools, seems to show that th
knowk-QPfi of runes w.i-; not restricted to a few, but w^
ge perally spread among the people..
Altbough these early nmic inscriptions do not contiiin
Fio. 125, — Runic SbiDe at Tumm in BohnsUii.
any accounts of historically-known persons^or events,
they are yet of the very greatest historical importance.
By them wc leam many interesting facts liearing upon
■ Cootjlc
III.] THE IRON AGE. 181
the civilisation of the people ; and above all we get to
know something of their language. They are the earliest
written records in Sweden, eight or nine centuries
before the firat documents on vellum still surviving.'
They show that during the Earlier Iron Age the speech,
and therefore the people,' were Teutonic ; but they show
also, and this is of great importance, that the language
spoken in the fourth and fifth centuries a.d. was very
much, though not 'quite, like that spoken by the Goths
on the Danube during the same period.
To the end of the j>eriod now under discussion belong
the two beautiful gold horns which were found — the one
in 1639, the other in 1734 — in nearly the same place at
Gallehus in Jutland, but were stolen away in 1802 from
the Kunstlcammar in Copenhagen and melted down.
They together weighed 13 lbs. Round the mouth of
one of them there was a long runic inscription. It is
supposed, doubtless with very good reason, that these
tioms were used as trumpets in a temple, and that the
figures represented on them have a mythological mean-
ing. The runic inscription does not help us here, because
it gives only the maker's name.
We have no other direct information, certainly, con-
cerning the religion of the Swedes during this part of
the Iron Age, but we may reasonably suppose that it
much resembled the religion of the Later Iron Age, as we
know it from the Eddas. Thor was probably the chief
god, and the number of place-names stiU surviving
which testify to his worship — such as Thorsharg (now
Thorshalla), Thorslunda, Thorsvi, and others — no doubt
1 The earliest Swedish" MS. on vellum datea from 1160-70.
the first known example of paper so used in Sweden dates from
about 1340.
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122 ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVILISATION. [eaxv
generally point to the places where the people during
the earliest part of the Iron Age, if not before, oflFered
to the god of thunder and of war. The great Danish
hoards so often mentioned before aeem also to have been
originally offerings made by a victorious army to the
god who gave them victory. In connexion with this
we should remember that it was in a bog in Thorsl^erg
that one of the most valuable of these boards was
discovered.
In the majority of Swedish graves of the Earlier Iron
Age we find burnt bones, in others remfuns of unbumt
bodies. The burnt bones were usually preserved in a
vessel of earthenware or bronze (see p. 101). The
nnburnt bodies were pretty frequently found lying,
especially in the islands of Gotland and Oland, in
stone cists, built of flat stones set up edgewise like
those of the Bronze Age already described (see p. 84).
When the dead were not burnt they seem to have been
buried with their clothes and ornaments, the men with
their weapons. We sometimes find on the breast of
the dead the central boss and other remains of a shield,
intended, it would seem, to protect the warrior even in
death. By the side of the body, as we have already
seen, we often find drinking-horos, glass beakers, or
other vessels, besides draughts, dice, &c. Even in
graves with burnt bones we generally find ornaments,
weapons, &c., often injured by fire, which in most cases
shows, no doubt, that they had followed the dead on to
the pyre.
The graves of the Earlier Iron Age in Sweden were
usually covered by a barrow or a cairn (Fig. 126).
Sometimes we find however, in Skine for example,
graves (with unbumt bodies) of this period which —
..Coo'jlc
III.] THE IRON AOE.
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12-i ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVILISATION. [chap.
like the hrandpletter of the first part of the Iron
Age, and the graves in Christian churchyards — lie under
the oatural surface of the ground. There is not, now at
least, any trace of them on the ground above. It is
common to find graves of this kind crowded together.
Many cemeteries of this sort are known in Denmark.
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THE IRON AGE.
0. — Thk FiKST Part of the Later Iron Aue.
(t'rviH Oie JiegiimUig of the Fifth to the beg'miiiiig of the Eighth Century a.o.)
When Italy had beeu overrun by the " barbarians,"
the old civilisation found undisturbed shelter only in
that part of the Roman empire which was subject to
Byzantine rule. It is very interesting therefore to find
so many traces of an active intercourse with Byzantium
in the rehcs dug up yearly out of Swedish soil,
fi'hc relics whicii have most to tell us are the liyzan-\
tine gold coins of the fifth century, which, together witly
the contemporary gold
coins of the western
hiilf of the Roman em-
pire, have been found
very plentifully in Scan-
dinavia, especially in
Sweden.! In_Fig. 127
Hi^
1)1.1.
wo have a coin struck diirintr t.lio n;i"7i of tlio Ei
Libius Sevenis.
nvr/
|t1iat tliis'sU'cam orgoliT Howiiig Ironi
Byzantium was much larger still, if \ve"Tear m mind
that 1T";>st of the beautiful gold orna ments in wliich tin:
e than 2 60 coins of this poi-ioJ comipg from the eastern and; t\ /^f -
of the Roman empire have been found in Swetleni ' »' — *'-
alone. The majority of tliem (more tlian 200) wore found in thcl
jelanda of Oland and Gotland. In Oland alone we r e foiiiul morcj
iTlian'a tliirJ of nil tiiat. Mf. yt^l knnwn in tiio jTwDT./"
■ IMore thi
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ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVIUSATIOS.
wedish fiuds of this period are so rich seem to have
been made in that couotry out of Roman and Byzaptine
coing melted doffn{
|The 3Qurce of thia stream is to be found ip thcl
Fio. 128.— Oold collar. Sudenntnl. i
tribute of gold, which Iiistory telU us that' many of thg
By^zantinc e mper ors h ad to pay t o the Goths on the
Danube. Tliey arc tlie very . same emperors whose
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THE IKON AGE.
'I That the ordinary lines of
between South Europe ana
SoatcTDavia fQUBffifld-tba-CQu£ae-QLJJ>t< Visi.»l;i ja also sbowf| Ifv thfi
^y*]-, ^hat the Gothic historiap Jordanes ^or Jomancleal, bishop in
RgyepnA. t^ Mcribes " the island of Sciioziti '—i.t. Skfine. or Swej
J3SS.
opposite the moutli of the ViHtiiln.l
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D,„„.db, Google
CU4P. III.] THE IRON AGE.
fi 1 9 1. ' The moat beautiful go ld orn ameats of tliial
"" " " brpac l
I collars weighing from about lib. 6qz. to lib. 13oz.|
rperiod yet found in tliP Nnrth n^-p t.hrfip. large brpt
^I' hey conaiat of aeveral (three, five, or seven^ hollow / \
rings lying one upon the other, and decorated with bne'
filigree work and other ornaments soldered on. At the I
back there is a hinge, and in front the ends of th'
rings fit inside each other, and ao the whole is made
secure. Two of these collars were found in Vester-
Gotland and the third in Oland (Fig. 130). No other
of the kind has, as far as we know, been foun d in any
o ther country]
\Aa there were yet no native coins in Sweden, gold by
weight was used tor payments. We often find buried
in thia country larger and smaller amooth gold rings of'
a spiral form, wiiich were evidently used aa a means
of eachange. They are frequently broken off at one^
[{Fig. 133). sometimes at both^ ends.)
The gold pendants, or " bracteates " as they are
called — an ornament of this period much like a coin or
medal — which are ao often found in Sweden, were
doubtless merely personal ornaments worn by all who
bad the wish and means to procure them ' (Figa. 131,
132), There ia no reason to suppose that they were
like the medals now worn as rewards or as marking an
order of merit. Sometimes several of these are found
in the same spot together with beads of gold or glass.
■ At Broholm m Fyen, id Deitmark, a board of gold was found
in 1832 oonsiating of rings, gold pendants, &c., weighing 71bs. lOoz,
See also the accouot of the horn found at Oallehiis on p. 121.
^ We must not confuse with these gold " bracteatee " the Email,
thiD silver coins of the middle ages, which are stamped only on one
side; though these are freijuently called by the same name. The
name is derived from the Latin bractea, " a thin plate."
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lao ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVILISATION. [cuai>.
They were probably all strung together and wound
round the neck ; the beads were put between the
Flu. 133.— Gold finger-ring with one end broken off, i)l. ]
Flu. 131. — Gold bract«at«, a "barbarian" cop? of a Roman coin. Bolu {.
bracteates to prevent them irom knocking against
each other. Some grave-finds prove that such orna-
ments were worn both liy men and vyomcn.
..Google
lu.] THE IRON AGE. 131
Many of ttese bracteatcs have upon tijcm the
figure of a human head above that of a four-footeJ
animal (Fig. 131), and were originally copies of Roman
coins of the fourth century (Fig. 134). It has lieen
thought that some of them may possibly have been
intended to represent Thor or some other god ; the
animal has sometimes a narrow pointed beard which
gives it the appearance of a goat, an animal which we
know to have been sacred to Thor.
Other pendants of this sort have intcrlaciog orna-
ments terminating in animal forms (Fig. 132). This
should be specially noticed, because it shows that the
taste for this kind of decoration which was so
beautifully developed during the last centuries of tlie
Iron Age already existed at the time we are speak-
ing of.
The bracteatcs not unfrcqucntly bear runic inscrip-
tions.* They were generally stamped. The figures in
relief on the front usually correspond to depressions on
the back, which is otherwise quite smooth. Round
these raised figures there are often fine decorations
made with a punch. The loop is sometimes ornamented
with beautiful filigree work. The largest golden
bracteate yet known is one recently found in Sk^ne
(see Guide, Fig. 122), which is 4f inches in diameter.
These bracteates, often the result of great skill, must
be regarded as native productions, because they are
found very plentifully in the North ; ^ whereas very few
> Od the bracteate (given in Fig. 131) which was found at
Vadstena we have a complete list of the old runes. See p. 177.
* More than 200 gold bracteates of the same kind ax in Fig,
131, and more than 100 bracteates with animal interUciogR, as
iu Fig. 132, have been found in Swcdeti, Norway, and Denmark.
K 2
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132 ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVIUSATION. [chap.
oniameute of this kind occur in other lands, and thcD
usually under circumstances which make it very probable
that they came from Scandinavia.
The bow-shaped fihulcB so usual during the Earlier
Iron Age (Fig. 117), had gradually developed into the
lat^e and handsome
forms common during
the period under dis-
cussion (Figs. 135, 136).
These brooches are dis-
tinguished both by their
peculiar shape and their
somewhat " barbarous "
ornamentation. AVe see
no longer the Roman iu-
Huence so visible in
the preceding centuries.
FihulcB of the same sort,
but with some slight
variations, are also found
in all countries inhab-
ited by Teutonic races
during the fifth and
sixth centuries. They
are usually of bronze or
Fiu.ias.-/--*"/.. of silver gilt. ., . *' .,, , ,
01. t sdver, often gilded, and
sometimes inlaid with
garnets or pieces of coloured glass.
Upon the back of a fibula (Figs. 136, 137) found at
Ethelhem, in Gotland, we find the following inscription in
runes — Ek Er{i)la iv[p)rta, meaning " I Jarl made (it)." '
> The rune for E has here the form f\ instead of the usuul
form |<^ .
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III.] THE IRON AUE. 133
Besides the gold coins from Byzantium, the gold
spirals, gold braeteates, and many other objects of gold
as well as the large fihulcB, we should also ascribe to
Fin, 136.— Buckle of nlTer gilt. Gotl. \.
this part of the Iron Age swords with hilts like those
represented in Figs. 138 and 141. Such hilta were
usually made of silver-gilt or gilded bronze. The
triangular pommel is sometimes decorated with beautiful
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134 ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVILISATION. [.hap.
interlacing ornaments. Some of those found in Sweden
nre made of solid gold. One, found in Qville parish,
Boliuslan, (Guide, Fig, 118) is decorated with inlaid
Fcr., 137. Reverse side of Fig. ISO.
garnets, like that represented in Fig. 138. A few
pommels have also been found decorated with massive
gold tops ' as seen in the same figure. We have
1 One, weighing nearly 8 oz., was found in 1862 at Qvicksts,
near Streognan.
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III.} THE IRON AOE. 135
already spoken of the gold mountings found at Thure-
holm (seep. 127). Many other similar pieces of pure
gold, which also once belonged to the hilt^ and sheaths
of swords, and are of the same date, have been found
in other places in Sweden. Some of them have
beautiful filigree ornaments (Guide, Fig. 119).
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136 ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVILISATION. [t-HAr.
The ornamentation on many of the objects of this
period found in the North {Figs. 139, 140) points to
the iofluence of Irish art. It is therefore more than
)'l«. 139.— OmiiirDt of Kililed bronze. Got). \.
probable that the ancient Swedes, even before the
beginning of the Viking Period proper, had direct
communication, whether peaceful or warlike, with the
British Isles. The poems of Ossian seem also to point
Fio. 110.— A iiUtc of gilded broiiu. Gotl. {.
to early relations between Scotland aiid the western
side of the Scandinavian peniasula.
One of the most remarkable finds of t^is period is
one made in 1855 in a barrow at Ultuna, near the
river Fyris, south of Upsala, In this barrow were found
z.dbvGooqlc
THE IRON AGR.
Fio. 141.— Upper part ol
n ivord with hilt of gilded bronie. Ujd. ]
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138 ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVILISATION. [cbap.
the mouldering, but yet visible, remains of a large boat
in which a man had been buried with his weapons and
horses.^ The nails which had kept the timbers together
were still in their places. By the side of the uubumt
body lay a sword. The blade was m'ade of iron, and
the beautiful hilt of gilded bronze with very graceful
interlacing ornaments, (Fig- 141). Traces were also
found of the wooden sheath and its gilded chape.
There were besides these an iron helmet with a
Fra. 112,— BoHH at a shitlil itimI? of iron vrith lirontc plating. Upl. ).
crest of silver-plated bronze, the boss of a shield
with beautifid bronze plating {Fig. 142), a shield-handle,
nineteen arrow-heads, the bits of two bridles, all of iron ;
and in -addition to these thirty-six draughts * and three
j:„- — ,i„ fyf ^,one. There were also parts of two
•f horses. In the forepart of the boat were
t have occasion to speak of Bimtlar finds soade in
Norway, eapeciaUy of two boats foond in barrows in
h are wonderfully well preserved,
le draughts was distinguished from the rest by a metal
ircumstance noticed in other sets of draughts belonging
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III.] THE IRON AGE. 13»
a gridiron and a pot made of iron plates nailed together
and having a movable handle, some bones of pigs and
geese. These are relics either of the funeral feast, or
of the food given to the dead.
Near the church at Vendel in North Upland several
graves have lately been discovered, belonging partly to
this, partly to the fol-
lowing, period. Most
of them contained large
l)oat8 about thirty feet
long, in which the dead
were buried with their
weapons, horses, and
other domestic animal.s.
In one grave was found
the skeleton of a falcon.
Of these weapons we
may specially mention
a beautiful sword and a
helmet (Figs. 143, 144 ;
see also Guide, Figs.
128—131). In another
grave lay an exquisite
bridle of gilded and
,, , , / Fio, 1*3.— Chape of eilded bronic.
enamelled bronze (see Upi. i.
Guide, Fig. 132). It
rested upon the head of a horse that had been buried
with the dead warrior. These graves, which all con-
tained remains of uubumt bodies, were not covered
with a barrow, but lay deep in the ground.
In other graves of the same period we find remains of
burnt bodies.
To this time we must refer the three great barrows
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140 ASCIENT SWEDISH CIVILISATION. [<:hai'.
near the church of Old Upsala, which are still far
famed in the North. They all lie upon one sandhill,
and each of them is more than 215 feet in diameter.
The most easterly of them, called in modern times
"Woden's barrow," was opened in the years 1846-7
in the following way : — A horizontal passage, 5 feet
broad and 7 feet high was cut from one side to the
middle of the barrow. The passage was lined with
timber and kept open till
1858, when it began to
fjill in. In 1860 it had
to be filled up. The
lower part of the barrow
is formed by the sandhill
itself, but the rest was
raised by human labour ;
it chiefly consists of sand.
In the middle there ia a
round heap of loose
-- stones, 49 feet in diame-
■''"■o\tti.7d'"s,';',;:^rv;;:"i':"'°" ™^^'«i "■« ^main, of
the pyre where the body
had been burnt. Kight at the bottom of the heap was
found a bard compressed layer (6 feet in diameter) of
ashes, charcoal, and burnt bone.s. Four inches deep
below this layer was a plain earthenware urn imbedded
in sand and covered by a thin slab of stone. It was
surrounded by a circle of large stones to protect
it from the enormous pressure of the stone heap and
mass of sand. It was 8 inches high and 10 inches
wide, and was filled to the brim with burnt bones. In
the urn and in the great layer of bones above were also
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lu-l THE IRON AGE, 141
found relics of several objects injured by the heat of the
funeral pyre, such as bronze ornaments, glass beads,
bone combs, draughts, also of bone, iron nails, and two
pieces of gold ornaments decorated with unusually fiae
filigree work, &c. The most westerly of the three
barrows, "TTior's barrow," as it is called, was opened in
1874, and proved very like in its contents to " Woden's
barrow," except that the pile of stones
was smaller, and the bones were not
preserved in an earthen vessel. Among
the things found in Thor's barrow^ we
may notice especially a small cameo of
late Roman work (Guide, Fig. 127).
The ornaments found in both these
barrows show that the graves belong
to the first part of the Later Iron Age.
Before the end of this period not
only Gotaland and Svealand, but also
the coast-land of Norrland as far north Fw, 145.— Smnii ovui
as Medelpad was inhabited. The period brona;. Oi. i,
is an interesting transition between the
Earlier Iron Age and the Viking Period. As rcgard^i
the tj^ical forms of implements, &c., it forma an im-
mediate continuation of the earlier, and a precursor of
the later, period. With the latter it has many points
of contact, as we see in the forms of sword-hilts, orna-
mentations, Ac. (cf. Figs. 141 and 174). One of the
typical forms most characteristic of the lii.st part of tht;
Iron Age, the large oval buckles (Fig. 154), were de-
veloped out of the small buckles of the same fomi
(Fig. 145) already found during tlie period of which
we have been sj>eaking.
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ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVIUSATION,
D. — ^TflE Second Part of the Later Iron Age, or
THE Viking Period.
( From lie begitmiag of the Eighth to Oie la$t half of the Eloienth CeiUury.)
The last part of the Iron Age includefl very nearly
the same centuries as what is properly known as the
Viking Period. It is certainly true that, even before
the eighth century, we can speak of, or at any rate
suppose, " viking expeditions," if this expression is
iutcnded to cover all expeditions by sea made for the
jiurpose of war and plunder. But history has hardly
anything to tell us of such early expeditions fix>m
Sweden ; and they must have been certainly in general
confined to the Baltic or the lands of the North. They
cannot have had the same importance in the history
of the world as those of the northern sea-kings whose
ambition drove them to attack the lands of old civilisa-
tion of the west and south of Europe. It was in the
year 787, according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,
that a "viking-ship" from the North first appeared ofi"
the coasts of England.
The sources of Swedish history during the Viking
Period arc very meagre, although the time lies only a
thousand years back. We have no native chronicles
dating from heathen times, or from the first few centuries
after the introduction of Christianity. Of history before
Olaf Skotkonung we have nothing but one or two short,
liito, and therefore untrustworthy records of the line of
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III.] TU£ IBON AGE. 143
kings. The niuic inscriptions, so important for knowing
the early language of the country, do not teach us much
of its political history. We are therefore, as far as
literary evidence is concerned, obliged to fall back
almost entirely upon what we can get from foreign
sources. Among these the Icelandic " Sagas," ' aa they
are called, hold the first rank. In making use of these
accounts of heathen times in Sweden, we must not
forget that they were not composed in their present
form till 250 years after the baptism of Olaf Skotkonung,
and also that they should be used with a degree of
caution because of their foreign origin.
When we come, on the other hand, to study the
civilisation of the ancient Swedes, their home-life
during the last centuries of heathendom, we are helped
by the more perfect knowledge we possess of the state "^
of affairs in Norway and in Iceland at the same time ;
because the conditions of life seom to have been much
alike in different Northern countries. This is parti-
cularly true of their faith and religion, as wc know
by many direct proofs. Though the Edda * was never
in its completeness written down or preserved except in
^ By saga was formerly meant much the same as we notr call
history, that is to say, a description of events which once happened,
not of such ae were only the offspring of the writer's fancy.
* Op poore strictly speaking Eddai. " The earlier Edda," or the
so«alled " Scemuiid's Edda," is ia its present form a collection, made
in 1240, of old songs telling us of our forefathers' faith and practice,
and stories of their heroes. One MS. of this long forgotten collec-
tion, almost the only one yet found, was discovered about 1640
in the house of an Icelandic peasant-farmer. " The later Edda," or
"Snorri's Edda," is a description of the heathen Northmen's religion
and views of the world, and also of their poetry. It was composed
by Snorri Stnrleeon about 1230. [The contents of these Eddas are
given in the Corjmt Poetieum Boreale, Vigfusson and Powell. Tr.]
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144 ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVILISATION. [ch*i-.
Iceland ; yet everything points to the fact that it once
belonged to the whole of the North, indeed probably to
the whole of the Teutonic stem, and that the Icelanders
merely saved from destruction this common treasure of
ancient songs and ancient lore.
As the development of the race may be considered to
have gone on generally &om worse to better, we get a
very fair idea of their life in former dajrs by knowing
their condition at later periods. To do so we must
take account of many featxires which by their very-
simplicity, if nothing else, prove themselves to be relics
from heathen times.
The most important source of our knowledge of
Swedish civilisation during the Viking Period lies
however in the numerous ancient relics and antiquities
of this time which are still preserved.
The Svithiod of the Viking Period did not comprise
the whole of modem Sweden. Sklne and Halland
belonged to Denmark, Bohuslan and Jamtland to
Norway, Dalsland and Vermland were disputed border-
proviuces. The coast-land of Norrland as far as the
district of Skellefte was certainly, as the numerous
old barrows show, inhabited during the Viking Period,
but its population was certainly much thinner than in
the South. Finland had not yet been joined to
Sweden.
The "lands," as they were then called, which at the
end of the heathen times were under tribute to the
King of Svithiod, were as follows : the strip of coast
which we just mentioned belonging to Norrland, the
three provinces round the Millar Lake, Dalarne,
Nerikc, Vester -Gotland, Ostcr - Gotland, Sm&land,
yCoot^lc
in.] THE IRON AGE. 145
Bleking, and the islands of Oland and Gotland.^ The
surface of old Svithiod comprised only about 61,000
English square miles, or a little more than half of the
Sweden of the present day, if we exclude the 44,000
equate miles of Swedish Lapland.
The appearance of the country has undergone very
important changes during the thousand years which
separate us from the 6rst century of the Viking Period.
Very much of what is now the most fertile ground
was then lake or marshy bog, and many parts were
navigable duriug the Middle Ages, or even later, where
we can now walk dryshod. This change has not been
altogether nature's work. Man has contributed largely
to this result by cutting down the foreata and by
draining the fens, and, during the present century
especially, by bringing many new lands into cultivation
where these once lay.
How great the population of Svithiod was at the
end of heathen times we do not know of course ; but
we may reasonably suppose that it was not a fifth
part so large as that of the Sweden of to-day.
Moat of the villages and farms in which the Swedes
of the Later Iron Age dwelt had then the same names
and the same situations as at the present day. We
have a proof of this in the remarkable fact that by
almost every village the graves still lie where the
heathen population was buried. Before antiquaries
were able to get that wide knowledge of antiquities
which we now possess, they believed that every eollec-
1 That both these islands and Bleking tvere already considered
as belonging to Sweden, we know from the interesting account
given by Othere and Widfstan to King Alfred the Great of their
joamey to Scandinavia at the end of the ninth century.
1,
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148 ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVILISATION. (chap
tion of ancient barrows or of memorial stones signified
a battle -fitld. But this view became untenable when
it was found how numerous these burial-places are,
and it had to be given up entirely when so many
graves of women and children were found in the
"giant-barrows." Many runic stones from the end of
heathen times tell ua not only the name of the village,
but also the owner of the land. Thus Gida, on a
stone raised near Ekolsund to her husband Thordjerf
Gudlogsson, describes to us how she dwelt at Ilarvistam,
the present HUrfvesta. Other stones speak of Ulf of
Skalibri (SkMhamra), Bjom of Kranbi (Granby), Agot
of Kalfstadhum, &c. Again, a rich yeoman named
Jarlabauki has described on no less than five different
stones how " he alone owned the whole of lUby " (in
Taby parish, Upland). That many of the present
names of places in Sweden date from heathen times
is also clear from the fact that several of them are
derived from the names of heathen gods, for example,
Odensvi, Thorslunda, Frovi, and others, which still mark
the spots where men once ofl'ered to the Asa-gods.
We find the following towns already mentioned
during the Viking Period : Lodose on the river Gcita-elf,
the Goteborg (Gothenburg) of that day, but situated
higher up the river ; Skara, Falukijping {sic), the chief
places in the earliest inhabited part of Vester-Gotland ;
Kalmar, Telge, Birka (upon the Bjorko in the Malar
Lake), and Sigtuna. We must not however form ex-
aggerated notions of the size of these towns, their
population, or the character of their houses.
In the north part of Bjorko considerable remains
of the old Birka are' stdl visible. The spot where
the town lay is still called hy-stdn, or "the place
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m] THE IRON AGE. 147
of the town," by having this meaning in old Swedish
as in Danish. The same spot is also known as
Svarta Jorden (" the black earth "), because the
soil is there full of charcoal and ashes. Among
these are found not. only domestic utensils, ornaments,
and weapons that have been lost or thrown away as
rubbish, but also a prodigious number of animal bones,
which by the treatment they have evidently received
are clearly the relics of the former inhabitants' meals.
The view once commonly held that the black earth was
a proof that the town was destroyed by fire has been
shown to be quite incorrect by means of the very
thorough examination to which the place has recently
been subjected.^ It is true that some traces of de-
structive fires were discovered ; but as a rule the colour
of the earth comes from the heaps of charcoal and ashes
taken from the hearths of the houses, together with
bones and other relics of meals. "The black earth"
is therefore something like the "kitchen-middens"
described at the beginning of this work, although on a
much larger scale. Altogether it forms a layer of 3 to
8 ft. upon a surface of about 20 acres. This gives us the
size of the ancient town ; seen from that point of view
the surface might be called rather small than otherwise.
The town was fortified. We still see on the east
aide a long wall broken by openings for the gates ;
and doubtless this also surrounded the south side,
though there it has been long ago levelled to make
way for agriculture. Probably the wall extended
to a fortress situated on a hUl west of the town,
which afforded a last resort iu case of siege. This
fortress is formed by a waU inclosing the hill except
• By Dr. Stolpe, of the National Historical Museum.
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ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVILISATION.
[CItAP.
mr
-^■ji
upon one side, where it is so steep as to require no
defence. The wall is unlike those aDcient fortifications
which occur in great numbers in the district of the
Malar Lake, . in that it is not formed only of loose
stones piled together, but, like that surrounding the
town itself, seems to have been made of earth, while
the inside consists chiefly of loose stones.
Round the town there is a large number of barrows,
probably the largest found in any part of Sweden.
The number of graves on the island now visible is
about 2,100, and yet many have doubtless disappeared
in course of time. To these we must also add several
graves not covered with a barrow, in which those
inhabitants of Birka were buried who, as we gather
from history, were converted to Christianity by Ansgar
and the missionaries who followed him. We can see
that these are Christian graves from the crosses and
crueiBxes found in them. More than a thousand
graves on Bjdrko have been recently opened and care-
fully examined, and their contents, like those of " the
black earth," prove them to belong to the last part
of heathendom, though nothing has been found which
can be referred with certainty to a date after 1000 a.d.
We may therefore conclude that the town was destroyed
by that time.
/ud this
Dd the neighbouring islands very many"
Arabic a nd West-European coins have been found, and
also many other things which have come from distant
lands, such as vessels, silver and bronze ornaments, &c.,
from Russia, Gotland, Skine, Germany, and England.
These confirm the statements of ancient writers con-
cerning the active communication between Birka and
— ^ ^__a
these countries.
yCootjIc
III.] THE IRON AGE. 149
The houses, even at this time, were certainly without
exception made of wood ; the arta of burniDg lime and
of making bricks were probably firat introduced into
the North with Christianity. The Swedish dwellings
during the Viking Period were undoubtedly like those
described in the Northern Sagas ; indeed we still oeea-
aionally see in out-of-the-way places houses of exactly
the same kind, called ryggAs-stugor, relics of an ancient
styla of building. In the Svarta Jorden on Bjorko
just mentioned, some curious relics of the burnt houses
were discovered, which point to two diiferent sorts
of building. On the one hand they found pieces of
red-burnt clay, with which the beams of the timber-
built houses were tightened after they had been stuffed
up with moss, and on the other burnt pieces of clay
marked with the impression of laths, and belonging
to buildings erected after the manner of the plastered
houses of Ska,ne.
A house of this sort consisted chiefly of a single long
four-sided room. The long side-walls were very low,
and without windows or doors. The entrance was by
one of the gable ends, through an anteroom, and the
window (or windows) were in the uaually high-pitched
roof This rested upon beams which went right across
the house from one wall to the other. The space
between the beams was not generally filled up by
a ceiling, but admitted the little light which could
come through the window and the amoke-hole ; for
there was no chimney, merely an opening in the top
of the roof, by which the smoke escaped from the
fire blazing on the middle of the floor. The roof was
on the outside covered with turf, thatch, or shingles.
If the room was required to be very large, the roof was
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150 ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVIUSATION. [chap
made to rest upon two rows of upright posts just like
the rows of pillars in our churches.
The windows were originally open places in the roof,
provided only with a wooden shutter, by which they
could be closed. At best they were covered with a thin,
more or less transparent substance, probably most fre-
quently eousisting of the thin membrane or caul which
Burrounds the new-born calf. This is still used for
windows in some parts of Iceland. Glass windows,
although already used by the Romans, certainly were
unknown in the North in heathen times.
The walls inside were generally bare or only covered
with shields, weapf>ns, and the like ; on high festivals
they were decked for the occasion with coloured woven
hangings.
The floor was composed, as is still the case in many
places, of nothing but hard-beaten clay. It could scarcely
have been boarded so long as there was no proper fire-
place and the fire blazed freely on a hearth composed
of flat stones laid on the middle of the floor. The use
of built-up fire-places and hearth-stones did not begin
in Norway till the end of the eleventh century. This
improvement, which must have conduced so largely to
domestic comfort, probably did not find its way into
Sweden any earlier.
The furniture in the heathen Northman's home was
neither much nor costly. Benches and beds fixed to
the walls, long tables in front, a few chests for keeping
the household treasures — these were the most important
things, if not all. " Stools " are however mentioned, as
in HivamrfJ ' : and in an Icelandic Saga it is related how
.011 broke into a barrow in Norway,
V/). Bar., vol. i., p. 24. Tr.]
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I.] THE IRON AGE. 151
and thereupon found its occupant seated on a Btool.
Strangely enough, at the end of last century, in opening
another Norwegian barrow, two fully-clad skeletons were
found in the grave, sitting on wooden stools, which __
however feU to pieces directly they were exposed to the ^t*W rAC T
air. of
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ID2 ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVIUSATION. [lhap.
they have often rings by which they were hung up on
the walls.
As early aa in the Edda, we read of chests "rich
with jewels." Of these chests we cannot of course ex-
l»cct to find any traces, except those parts which were of
metal, such as locks and keys (Fig. 146) and decorative
plates. Similar finds have been fre-
A quently made in Sweden.
I The keys were worn by the mistress
'"^ of the house as a symbol of her
authority indoors. The Edda relates
how — when Thor had to borrow Freya's
clothes in order to get back by craft
the hammer stolen from him by the
giant — " they dress up Thor in linen
and the great Brising-omament : keys
jingle at his belt" '
In the dangerous days of the Viking
Period men would not always trust
their silver and gold to the weak pro-
tection of such chests and locks as
they then possessed. They often there-
*''°^^**~^™"^'' fore hid them in the ground by some
stone or other mark which the owner
only knew. When he died without the opportunity or
the wish to reveal the hiding place to any one else, the
treasure remained in the ground ; and many such hoards
have only in our own day been again accidentally
brought to light by the plough or the hoe. They
were usually deposited in a copper box, a horn, or
some such thing, and are often very valuable. Every
[' 8w; Cvrp. llor., vol. i., p. 178. Tr,]
..Coo'jlc
in] THE IRON AGE. 163
year several are discovered, and a large number are now
preserved in the National Museum at Stockholm.'
During the long winter evenings the room or hall was
lighted up chiefly by the fire on the hearth or the
torches made of dry cloven pieces of resinous pine and
stuck into the walls. At a time when the evenings
were not employed in reading and writing, people did
not want such good light as now.
By the help of the finds and Sagas we can get a
very fair idea of the domestic utensils which the Northmen
used during the last few centuries of heathendom, Ju
particular a large number of vessels of differeut kinds
have been preserved to our own day. The cooking
vessels were sometimes made of bronze or earthen-
ware ; sometimes they were pots made of stone or iron
' Snch hoards from the last few centuries of the Iron Age, gene-
rally of silver, have been found in almost all parts of Sweden, but
moatly in the neighbourhood of the Malar I^ke, in Sk&ne, Oland, and
especially Gotland. In Svarta Jorden (see above p. 147) in Bjorkii a
hoard of silver was found in 1872 weighing many pounds. In the spot
called Fblhagen, near the monastery at Soma in Gotland, a copper
vessel was fonnd in 1866 containing a large number of ornaments
(see Figs. 162 — 169) and silver coins, together weighing nearly
9 lbs., as well as a little gold ingot. Another hoard which was
found twenty years ago near Tisby in Gotland contained two gold
bracelets weighing 7oz., and. silver ornaments weighing lOlbs.
Another board was found more than 40 years ago in Rohne parish
(also in Gotland) which weighed nearly 10 lbs. The two largest
hoards of this sort which have come to light of late years were
found — the one in 1866 at Jobannishus at Blekiog ; the other in
1880 at Espinge in Hnrfva parish, Sk^ne. The first was a copper
box containing a large number of perfect and broken ornaments,
<!bc., as well as more than 4,000 silver coins, weighing together
ISlbs. 12oz. The second comprised nearly 7,000 perfect, and more
than 1,700 broken coins, besides ornaments, iic. ; they were all
of silv-er, and weighed 10 lbs. 4 oz.
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154 ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVILISATION. [cHiP.
(seep. 139). Frying-paoa with handles and gridirons
have also been found.
But still more abundant than kitchen-ware are drink-
ing and table vessels, most of them of wood or baked
earthenware, but some of them of silver or glass.
(Fig. 147.) The earthen vessels were never glazed. In
the National Museum there is a beautiful round silver
Fia. 147.— Glass cup. UpL 1.
bowl (Ant. sued. Fig. 651), ornamented with animal
interlaeings, which show, by their perfect resemblance to
the runic stones, that the work must be Swedish. The
bowl was found at Lilla Valla, in Ruthe parish in Gotland,
together with a large number of German and Enghsh
silver coins, of which the latest were struck during
the eleventh centurj'.
The ordinary drinking vessel was however the horn,
which was generally used even during the Earlier Iron .
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n.] THE IRON AGE.
Age (seep. 112). /There is preserved in the National
■Museum a little fiilver figure, representipg a woman
holding a drinking horn in her hand"
(Fig. 148). We read in the Sagas
that it was the custom during the
Viking Age for the daughters of the
douse to hand round the boms to the
men as they drank. /
At meal-times the tables were laid
With cloths, at any rate in the houses pendant. OL ).
of the rich, as we see from the Edda
song Rigsthula, which has a simple but vivid description
of Heimdal's visit to the home where the ancestor of the
jarU was afterwards bom : — '
Then took the mother -
The embroidered cloth
Of linen, white,
And laid it on the boaid.
Then set she down
Thin loav^ of bread,
Whcftten, white,
Upon the cloth.
Next brought ishe forth
Dishee brimfull,
Silver-mounted,
High-flavoared ham
And roasted fowl.
There wae wine in cans.
Beauteous cups.
They drank, they talked
Till break of day,
&c., ias.
The dishes, or plates, upon which the food was served,
were indeed usually simple wooden trenchers ; though
[' See Cwp. Bor., vol. i., p. 239. Tr.]
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160 ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVILISATION. [lhap.
sometimes, as in the verses
just quoted, we have descrip-
tions of such as were, partly
at any rate, of silver. But
none of the kind from the
Viking Period have been
discovered in Swedish finds.
Pewter plates were probably
still quite unknown. The
food was cut with the com-
mon knives which every one
carried at their belts.' Forks
are the invention of a later
day ; during the heathen
times men used their fingers,
and therefore Northmen, Uke
the Greeks of Homer's poems,
washed their hands before and
after meals. The spoons were
made of wood, horn, or bone
(Fig. 149) ; silver spoons have
not yet been discovered in
any Swedish find belonging
to heathen times (but sec
p. 112).
It is certainly difficult for
us to imagine bow people
contrived to get along at a
time when they had neither
Fia. Ii9.— spoon made of elk-horu. potatoes, COfFce, tea, SUgaT,
•* ' '■ nor any of the spices of the
[' Knives Rre etill so worn by tlie peasants in Sweden, Korway,
and Finland.— Tr.]
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III.] THE IRON AGK 157
South. But they had bread instead of potatoes, milk
instead of coffee and tea, honey instead of sugar, and
the appetite which comee from hard work ia always the
best spice. Besides the field and dairy produce, there
was plenty of wild game, and several findg have proved
that they had both geese and poultry at this time.
Snorri relates of King Sigurd Syr, the step-father of
St. Olaf, who dwelt at Ringerike in Norway, that the
guests in his house got every other day fish and milk,
and on alternate days meat and ale.^ Mead was a costly
drink, and was not produced on ordinary occasions, and
peculiar herbs were sometimes added to make it more
intoxicating. Wine was not unknown, but seems to
have been very scarce.
We can get very clear ideas about the dress of the
Northmen at this time from the Eddas, the Sagas, and
the finda The accounts of the Sagas must however
in this respect be used with great caution, because they
were not written down till some two centuries after the
end of heathendom, when important changes had taken
place in the matter of dress. In many cases it is difficult
therefore to decide whether the writer of the Saga was
describing a faithfully preserved tradition, or was cloth-
ing his heroes in the fashion of a later time. We have
no such violence to " historical costume " to fear in the
contemporary representations and the finds in the
barrows of heathen times.
Many finds prove that besides skins and furs, woollen,
linen, and silken stuffs were used by the Northmen during
the Viking Age. Silken stuffs were however of course
a great luxury. In Rigsthula we read that the new-
[' See Laing'a SenrKingt, vol. ii., p. 31. — Tr.]
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158 ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVILISATION. [chap.
born jarl was wrapt in silk;^ and in the barrow at
Mammen in Jutland ab-eady mentioned there was found
a well-preserved belt, &c. of silk ornamented with silver
and gold. In the same find there was also a woollen
Fio. 150. — Piece of « woollen roftntle vfith embroidery. Denmark J.
mantle with embroidered work representing a man's
face, a lion, a beautiful leafy tendril, &c. {Figs. 150
and 151). It is not however yet certain whether these
[' See Cory. Bor., vol. i., p. 240, line 130.— Tr.]
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ni.] THE IRON AGE. 169
pieces of ornamental work were produced in the North,
or brought thither from foreign lands.
On the other hand the ordinary woollen and linen
materials were generally the productions of native in-
dustry. This is seen, among other things, by the
FiO. 151. — Piece of « woollen mintle wilh embroidery Denmuk |.
relics of the instruments employed in making them,
which are often contained in the Northern finds of
this Age. For instance, we have sometimes found the
hackles used in preparing flax and the weights by
which the warp was kept stretched in the loom. We
cannot of course expect that any other parts of looms
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HiO ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVILISATION. [.bap.
and the like, of this Age, except what was made of stone
or metal, could defy the ravages of time ; yet the aocient
forms of distaffa and loom^ preserved down to historic
limes, and in some distant parts to our own day, show
how the women of the North spun and wove a thousand
Klu. m. — A loom from tlio Fnzij laics.
years ago (sec Fig. 152). The spinning-wheel, which is'
now in towns looked upon merely as a relic of the past,
was probably yet unknown. They used the distaff
instead, ju.st as the Grecian women of whom Homer
sang did two thousand years before, and just as the
girls do still in the remotest parts of Dalama. Small
spinning-whorls of stone, sometimes of amber, exactly
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in.] THE IRON AGE. ICl
like tbose used in these distaffs of Dalama, are also
o ften met wi th in S wedish finds of this time.
(We are helped in forming an idea of the domestic liie
and occupations of these ancient times by a verse in
Rigsthvla, which describes a visit of Kig to a good
couple, representing the gentry of the period. We see
from this that the women of quality ii^ t,hngi>, Haj-a
were not superior to active liniisfthnlfl «j»rl- 1/
/Yqtc^
The father sat
and twined his bowstring;,
bent elm for bow
and hafted arrows.
But the housewife thought
of handiwork,'
Smoothed her linen
and pleated her sleeves.
The men's dress comprised in the main the same
parte as that of the present day : a shirt, breeches,
stockings, shoes, a coat (" kirtlc," as it was called), kept
together by a belt, and over this a cloak or mantle,
and upon the head a cap or hat. These different articles
of dress were often made of brilliant colours, but their
shape was usually the same as now. The kirtle docs
not seem to have been open in front, as coats arc now
usually worn ; and so was probably much like a long
blouse. The cloak was usually fastened with a buckle.
This description is gathered, it is true, mostly from
the Icelandic Sagas ; but that it applies also to Sweden
is shown, among other things, by tlic representations of
Swedish dresses found on many runic stones belonging
to the end of heathen and the beginning of Christian
[' See Ctrrp. Bor., vol. i., p. 239.— Tr.]
[« See note in Corp. B<yr., vol. i., p. 510.— Tr.]
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102 ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVIUSATION. [chap.
times. We find them, for example, upon a stone at
Hunestad in SHne, ou Itoth sides of a stone in the
churchyard at Leberg in Oater-Gotland, upon a stone
now built into Femebo church in Gestrikland, and upon
' some of the runic so-called " picture-stones " {Bildstenar)
in the island of Gotland. We have an interesting con-
tribution to our knowledge of the Swedish dress at the
fceginuing of the Viking Period in the remarkable figures
upon four bronze plates found in 1870 in a cairn at
Fio. 153. — Btouie [>Ute vdth Ggnra io relief. OL i.
Itjomhofda in Oland, and now preserved in the National
Museum (Fig. 153.)
In order to give a more vivid picture of the dress
of the time in question, we will quote the description
of the clothes which King Sigurd Syr in Ringerike
wore when he went out over the fields and superintended
the harvest.^ This was in the autumn of 1014, on the
occasion when his stepson Olaf Haraldsson, better known
perhaps as St. Olaf, came to visit him. " It is thus said
[» See Sea-Kingt, vol. ii., p. 27.— Tr.]
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ul] the iron AGB. 163
of his (Sigurd's) attire," so writes Snorri, " that he had
a blue kirtle and blue hosen, high boots bound about
the legs, a gray cloak and a gray hat, a shade about the
Fio. 164.— Ovd btonie brooch. Ol. {.
face, and in his hand a staff, which had at the top a
silver knob overlaid with gold, and in it a silver ring."
In order to do due honour to his stepson, he had " his
boots taken oflF, and set upon his feet hoson of cordwaio,
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16i AXOIENT SWEDISH CIVIUSATION. [chap.
and boimd upon them gilded spurs ; then took he off
his cloak and kirtle, and clad him in his gala clothes,
and over all a scarlet cloak, and girt about him a
decorated sword, and set upon his head a gilded helmet
and mounted on his horse, which had a gilded saddle
and a bridle all-gilded and set with melted atones
(that is, enamel)." A bridle with gilt mountings and
Fig. 153.— Round silver brooch. Got], (.
enamelled bronze exactly corresponding to the descrip-
tion of that belonging to Sigurd's horse was found in
one of the graves near the church at Veudel already
mentioned (see p. 139).
The women's dress seems to have been much like that
still worn in country places.
A visit to the National Museum in Stockholm — so
rich in costly memorials of the Viking Period especially
— will show, better than any words can do, bow true
the accounts are which the Sagas give us when they
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Ui-l THK IRON AGE. ICg
Speak of the luxury and magnificence which the North-
men of both sexes were able to develop a thousand
years ago. We see the handsome aud as a rule very
tastefully wrought brooches and buckles of silver and
bronze, the latter often oruamented with plates aud
Fia. 157. Silver lirooch. O.-OutL {.
twists of gold or ailvcr ; belts and torques of massive
silver ; bracelets and finger-rings of gold and silver,
solid and sometimes very heavy; chains and pendants
for the neck and breast of gold, silver, and bronze ;
large and handsome beads of silver, glass, glass
mosaic, rock crystal, carncliau, amber, &c. ; bone combs
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JIW ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVIUSATIOS. [cHiP.
often of very fine workmanship, &c., &c. (See Figs.
154—169.)
These many kinds of omamenta are not only im-
portant because they show us the early Northmen's
magnificence ; thoy are of more importance as proving
that these so-called "barbarians," so dreaded Ijy the
Fli:. 158.— Brone brooch of silrer-gilt Sk. f.
people of "Western Europe, should not be regarded merely
113 wild warriors, but were also well versed in peaceful
pursuits.
There was a time when it was said that all Swedish
antiquities which shewed any artistic skill must have
been brought into tlie country as booty from foreign
landa A calmer inquiry in our own day has shown
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m.]
THE mON AGK
however that moat even of the best-worked ornaments
are products of native industry. Nay, we have now
reason to wonder that there is, as a matter of fact,
AWS 7A-
Fio. 159.--BranzRj!h(Ift {two
Fio. ISO. — BiDg-aliaped bronze brooch. Gotl. 1.
so little found in Sweden which can be suppose'
have been brought there by the vikinga from Wes
Europe. If we except the German and Anglo-Ss
coins of the tenth and the beginning of the elev
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168 ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVILISATION. [chap.
centuries, there is little left to remind lis of their
frequent visits to England, France, and other lands
plundered by the Northmen in their " west- viking."
The explanation of this somewhat surprising discovery
must however be sought partly in the fact that only
a very small part of the Northmen's booty has come
into our hands, partly that a lai^ proportion of the
Fio. ISl.—Solid silver bncrkt. GotL }.
metal ornaments &c. brought back by the returning
sea-kings were worked up again in course of time.
To this we must add that many vikings remained
behind in foreign lands, and that many ships either
foundered as they were returning home, or were seized
— booty and all — by some stronger foe.
In the barrows of this time we often find a number
of tools, such as anvils, sledges, hammers, pincers
(Figs. 170 and iTl), files, awls, borers, axes, knives,
planes, scrapers, and saws. The larger anvils were
made of stone, the smaller of iron. We also find bellows
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THE IRON AGE.
Flo. 162.~Tni3ted silver braccleC GotL {.
^ 9
Fioa. 183—167. Silrer beads. GatL ].
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170 ANCIEKTT SWEDISH CIVILISATION. (chap.
and many other tools represented on the wonderiul
"Sigurd's carving" (Sigurdsristmngen) in Soderman-
land, to which we Bhall shortly have occasion to
refer.
We have an interesting relic belonging to a smith of
this period in the hoard found twenty years ago in the
parish of £kc in Gotland ; it is now preserved in the
National Museum. It was discovered by men who were
cutting a dyke, and comprised the following articles : —
A large pair of tongs and two large iron weights, a
strong hook belonging probably to a pair of scales, two
small bronze moulda used either for casting or relief
work, three small bronze buckles (Guide Fig. 155) still
joined together (which had been cast in the same mould,
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m.] THE IRON AGE. 171
ami were evidently in the same condition exactly as
when they left it), several other bucklea, keya, Ac, of
bronze and iron. Of these some seemed to have been
worn out and had probably been collected for working
up again ; while others were only half prepared, and
may therefore, like the three buckles mentioned above,
be regarded as specimens of the smith's skill, who
for some renson unknown to us buried these things in
the ground.^
As far as the raw material is concerned we have good
reason to believe that moat of the metal was imported
from other countries. It is however very probable that
even during heathen times the Swedes understood the
art of smelting the metal obtained from ferruginous
deposits. A laige quantity of ore obtained from such
deposits in pools and lakes is smelted at the present day
in Sweden. But it is hardly likely that before the
introduction of Christianity they began to work any of
the Swedish iron-miDcs.
In order to smelt the ore thus obtained they probably
then knew only of what were afterwards called the
" heathen- blowers " {hcdningehlaster), or the same
method which is still used in the northern parts of
Dalama and H^rjeSdalen, aud seems to be also in
vogue in Finland and central Kussia. In small pits
or ovens built up of stone and clay the ore was melted
down with the help of ordinary bellows into small
^ It may perhaps be here worth noticing that the farm on which
the hoard was found is called SoiiBs — that is, " Smith's (farm) ".
It is of conrst! possible that this is merely a coincidecce, but
it is also possible that the farm got this name becaose a smith
— or perhaps Beveral smiths in succession (the occnpation being
handed on from father to sod) — dwelt there during the heathen
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172
ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVILISATION.
[(■Hi P.
ingots known oa " Osmund's iron." In several places
in the country traces of this method of working iron
during the heathen times are said to have been
founi ___^ ^^^^^_^^^
(The word " smith " at that time was used of any
' man who was skillul in workmg metals. Ihe fcagas
certainly speak of the dwarfs as remarkably skilled in
smith's work, but they also tell us that there were
smiths of a more human type, and that these were
liighly respected. We can see this even so early as
in the Snga of Viilund (or GeiToan Wieland) ' and from
the fact that one of the freebom yeoman's sous in
RicjSilixda is called Smith ; ' the name is also found on
some runic stones, as, for example, upou that at
Girdby Church in Gland. Again the Icelandic Sagas
tell us of several kings and other mighty men who
uudei-stood the art of making their own weapons.
Skallagrim, the far-famed father of Egil, one of the most
renowned Icelandei-s of his time, stood himself in his
ithy and " hammered the i ron.")
|Wc arc too much disposed to attribule to the ancient 1
Northmen an exclusive devotion to tlie enticing adven-
tures and easy spoils of pillage, and are apt to imagine
that they altogether despised the quiet business of a
peaceful life, leaving it to thralls who were unworthy
of taking part in the fray. This idea is entirely con-
tradicted by what we know of the conditions of life
during the Viking Period. As a proof of this we.
[' See Corp. Sor., to), i., p. 169. English readers will call
to mind the BO-called "Weyland Smith's cave," Dear the White
Horse on the Berkshire Downs, and the legends connected with
it.— Tr.]
[* W., vol.i.,p 238.— Tr.]
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THE IRON AGE.
feced but aJduce the description in the Edda of tlicl
Ifrec-borq Y^;;omat^ 'pl ^"" ■ ' }
■^Qd build bftrnsi
to make carts)
and form ploughs/
/And Snorri tells of the already mentioned King 1 nS ^Ut^u
Sigurd Syr in Kingeriko,* that the messenger who came ^1 /)y< (f'
to tell him of Olaf's unexpected arrival found the king ^(^ '}£
out in the field, where he had " many men, of whom /Ycrt
some cut the com, others laid it in stacks and barns. l-i.iw^t'.^tt.
The king and two men with him went sometimes into
the field, sometimes to where the c orn was being gathered
in. ^18 &110W>J h()W honourable the work was thouglit\
Pasturage and tillage furnished then, as now, the
most important means of subsistence. Long before
this, more than 2,500 years before the end of heathen-
dom, almost all the most important domestic animals
were, as we have seen, to be found in Sweden, namel)^
dogs, horses, cattle, slieep, goats, and pigs. Tliat of
poultry they had now geese and fowls at any rate, we
have already mentioned. Life in the cots of Dsdarna
and Norrland in our own day is doubtless very much
like what it was a thousand years ago, with the same
simplicity and freshness, the same solitude, fostering
the poetical, somewhat imaginative temperament which
is so pleasingly expressed in their folk songs.
Bee-culture was considerably practised during heathen
[' See Cai-p. Hot., vol. i., p. 2;i8.— Tr.]
[« See Sea Kings, vol. ii., p, 27.— Tr,]
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VH ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVIUSATION. [<;'"*'•■
times, because, to say nothing of other uses, much
honey was required for mead. Yermland is espe-
cially praised for its richness in beea In a Gotland
grave belonging to the end of this period a beautiful
jibvla of gilded bronze was found, in which there was
still a piece of wax coloured green by the verdigris from
the metal ; it is now in the National Museum. With
Christianity this industry in-
creased in importance, because
wai lights were wanted for the
churches.
The most common kind of
cereal during the Viking Period
was barley ; but oats, rye, and a
certain amount of wheat were
also cultivated. In a verse of
the Rigslhula already quoted
we read of " thin loaves of
bread, wheaten white." '
Crop-failures and famines
Kio. 172.— Iron <aMe. ^l r i. i ^i
0-Gi>tL i. were pretty frequent, and the
only remedy against them was
sought in richer offerings to the angry gods. If nothing
else availed, they had recourse to human sacrifices.
\Vc remember how we read in the Ynglinga Saga tliat
the Swedes, after the crops had failed for several yeai-s
in succession, and the goda would not be pacified with
meaner victims, at last offered up their king.
Of course not much in the way of agricultural im-
plements has been preserved from heathen times. A
few axes, however, as well as plough-shares, sickles
(Fig. I72)i and scythes have been sometimes found.
' Sec ubove p. 155.
DignzBdhyGoOqlC
HL] the mON AGE. 175
Com was threshed with a flail and was ground, at
least generally, in band mills ; this was, as we soe from
Fjolner's Saga, the work of female thralls.
Certainly mills were often of the same simple kind
as during the Stone Age. They consisted namely of a
block of stone with a large oval depression in which the
com was crushed by the hand with a round stone. Mills
of this kind are often found buried, and seem to have
been used till quite lately in distant parts of the country.
But that even in heathen times hand-mills ^ of a better
construction were known is shown by one of the songs
of the Edda, the poem of Helgi Hundingsbane.^ It is
related there that Helgi in order to escape his enemies,
was obliged to dress up as a female thrall and go out
to grind. He does it with such violence that " the
stones crack and the bam breaks in pieces." Whereupon
one of his enemies says :
More tmited
to these h&nds
ia the snord kilt
than the " mill-wood " (t.«. the bandle of the mill).
We know httle of any fruit or garden culture during
the Viking Period, and there cannot have been much.
It was in the Middle Ages, especially inside the still
walls of the monastery, that it first flourished. How-
ever the Saga of Idun's apples makes it clear that this
' Water-millB were used hy the Bomans during the Empire, but
it is difficult to say whether they were known in the Nortli before
the introduction of Christianity. They are certainly mentioned in
tbe earliest Swedish MS3., bat these are nearly 200 years later
than the Buppreesion of heathendom in that country. Wind-mills
were probably a mnch later invention ; as far as we know they are
first mentioned in Sweden about 1330, or rather later.
P See Corp. Bar., vol. i., p. 148.— Tiv]
Dignz.dbvCoOgle
176 ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVILISATION. [chap.
fruit was not entirely unknown during heathen times,
and in one of the songa of the Edda, Frey's servant
Skimir says to Gerd the daughter of the giant : "
Apples eleven
Elere have I all-golden,
Them will I give thee
to buy thine affection,
if thou to Frey
wilt promise thy love.
Besides we often hear of nuts and " nut-groves," where
the women used to amuse themselves in the summer
time while the men were out hunting.
The chase and sports in the open air were the men's
chief delight. The cha.'^e, at first arising from the
necessity of procuring food, soon became also a pleasure,
eagerly pursued in days when men courted danger and
loved manly pursuits.
Hawking was practised in heathen times, and the
North was then, just as in the Middle Ages, famed for
its falcons. It has been even supposed that this knightly
sport actually originated in the North, and through the
Norman barons spread over Europe. The discovery of
a falcon's bones in one of the graves at Vendel has
been already mentioned (sec p. 139).
Snorri relates of Olaf Skiitkonung that he rode out
early oue day with his hawks and hounds, and with him
his men. When they flew the hawks, the king's hawk
in one flight brought down two blackcock, and directly
after he had another flight and slew three more. The
hounds ran below and seized every bird as it fell to the
ground ; the king rode home well pleased with his
quarry. When he rode iuto the court- yard his daughter
[' Bee Curp. Poet., vol. i., p. 113.— Tr.]
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m.] THE IRON AGE. 177
came and greeted Iiim. He told her at once of liia
sport, and said, " Have you known of any king who
made so big a bag in such a short space ? " "A fine
morning's sport," she answered, " is this, my lord, in
that you have bagged five black-cock ; but Olaf king of
Norway made a better bag when he took in one morning
five kings and laid their kingdoms under his sway." '
Among outdoor sports games of ball seems to trace
their origin to heathen times. For such games and other
manly exercises the young folk would gather from the
whole neighbourhood, sometimes meeting on playgrounds
specially set apart, as is the case up to the present time
in Gotland.
Of musical instruments we read of the lyre, the horn,
the pipe, the fiddle, and above all the harp, one of the
oldest and most prized. Snorri relates of Olaf Skcit-
konung, that when the meats were set upon the king's
table, the players stepped forth with " harps, fiddles,
and other instruments." To the tones of the harp the
Skalds generally sang their songs. Skalds often visited
at the court of the Swedish kings ; sometimes they came
from Iceland. Thus we read that when the Icelander
Hjiilte came from St. Olaf on his well known business to
Olaf Skiitkonung, he found at the Swedish king's court
two of his couutrj'men, the Skalds Gissur and Ottar.
That the ancient art of poetry was not unknown in
Sweden is proved also by the runic inscriptions in verse
(in the ancient metre called furni/rdalag) which still
survive, as for instance that upon a stone at Karlevi in
Oland.
Games played with dice were, as we have seen from the
grave-finds, already in vogue during, the earlier part of
[' See Sea-Kings, vol. ii., p. lOS.— Tr.]
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178 ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVILISATION. [chap.
the Iron Age {see pp. 114, 138). In graves of the Later
Iron Age draughts and dire are found pretty frequently.
Chess too was probably in heathen times already
known in the North. It has been thought likely that
tliia much-prized game was brought to Scandinavia from
Asia througli Constantinople as early as the eighth or
ninth century, if not before. Charlemagne seems to
have gi^■en a costly set of chessmen to the treasury at
the monasterj^ of St. Denis, We have also an account
of a complete set found in 1730 in an ancient barrow in
Hedemark in Norway ; unfortunately the pieces, which
had been wrapped in a silk cloth, are now no longer
preserved. On the other hand we have in the National
Sluseum a small antiquity of bone, which possibly
belonged to a set of chessmen. It was found some
years ago in a barrow near the church of Salem in Siider-
manhind. In two barrows close by they came across
several round draughts made of bone, like those found
at Ultuna (see p. 138). Lastly we may call to mind
the famous chess-match which was played at Riiskilde
between King Knut [Canute] the Great and his brother-
in-law Ulf Jarl, in 1017, and resulted in the murder
of the latter on the following day in the choir of St.
Lucius.'
riiut more popular than eitner chase or games were
// _ ]t he wild pleasures of the battlc'-Acld. /'i'hc .N orthmen
/i '> T {actuallv believed that the iovs of Valhalla after death
^_, .. 1 would consist in mighty conflicts by day, and that when ,
< ' ' Ithe battle was ended both fallen and victorious would.
[every evening en joy a glad banquet in Woden's HalhJ
Sagas and songs arc full of accounts of battles and
exploits which should secure the hero's name an un-
[' See SeorKings, vol. ii. pp. 252-3. — Tr,]
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m.] THE IRON AGE. 179
dying honour. We cannot now stop to describe these
exploits, but will just cast a glance at the weapons which
once made the Northmen so teiTor-inspiring. The
abundant finds and many different accounts in the
Sagas give us a clearer knowledge on this than on
many other points.
As defensive weapons we find mentioned coats of
mail, helmets, and shields. Coats of mail skilfully made
. of fine iron rings already occur, as we have seen, during
the Earlier Iron Age (see Fig. 110). In the rich
Norman embroidery of the time of William the
Conqueror, known as the Bayeux Tapestry, we see
similar coats of mail worn by the Norman knights at
the Battle of Hastings in 1066. According to Grim-
nismal, one of the songs in the Edda, the benches in
Woden's Hall were covered with mail.' Besides coats of
mail we read in the Nothern Sagas also of defensive
armour made of leather, thick linen, and the like.
The helmets found at Ultuna and Vendel (sec pp. 138,
139) are the only ones of the Iron Age hitherto found
in Sweden. On the bronze plates found at Thorslunda
we sec helmets decorated with figures of animals (see
Fig. 153).
Shield-bosses of iron are not uncommon in the Swedish
graves of the Viking Period The shields themselves,
which were made of wood, leather, or something else of
the kind, have of course almost always perished. We
have a remarkable exception to this in the ship found
in the barrow near Grokstad, and described below. All
round the vessel were set sixty-four shields, most of
which are almost perfectly preserved. They were
painted alternately yellow and black, and were all
[> See Carp. Jior.,^o\. i., p. 71.— Tr.]
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180 ASCIEST SWimiSH CIVIIJSAnON. [chap.
round. That they were usually of this shape is shown
by such descriptions as " the battle's wheel," " the
battle's ring," given them by the Skalds. In the
museum at Christiania there is still preserved an old
round wooden shield, with an ornamental rim and a
runic inscription round the edge of the boss. There is
a similar round shield also in the museum at Copenhagen,
Fio. 173.— Iron ue. Dpi f
with a decorated rim, but without runes. They both
belong to the eariy centuries of the Middle Ages.
The offensive weapons during the Viking Period were
swords and spears, battle-axes (Fig. 173) and clubs,
bows and arrows. The chief metaJ was iron, or more
strictly speaking, steel ; but it was ofteu, for decorative
purposes, inlaid with gold or silver. The sword was
two-edged, strong, and sharp (Fign. 174, 175); the
length of the blade, which was not unfrequently
damasked (Fig. 175), was usually about two feet six
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THE IRON AGE.
inches. The hilts, which were often tastefully inlaid
with silver, were usually designed for one hand ; the
cross-guard was short. One of the most valuable
Flo. tli. — Upper part of n two-edged iron aword. Upl. j
swords found in Sweden of the Viking Period, pro-
bably the last part of it, is one found some years ago
in a peat-bog at Dybeck, in Sk&ne. The cross-guard
and pommel consisted of solid silver-gilt with beautiful
decorations, and the hilt itself had been tightly bound
with gold thread.
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ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVILISATION.
[CE
/Vcte
The other weapons were much like those belonging to
the earlier part of the Iron Age.
Shipbuilding reached a high degree of perfection in
the North during the Viking Period, higher perhaps than
in most Christian lands ; and the numbers of ships in
Northern countries must have been very considerable.
Fleets of from 600 to 700 ships are frequently men-
tioned. Snorri even relates that the Danish king Knut
the Great for his attack on
Norway collected a fleet of
" twelve hundred ships." '
This would mean 1440, be-
cause 120 was then reckoned
to the hundred.
mme
hips were propelled some-
limes by a sail, sometimes
with oars. On each ship there
was generally only one mast
and one sail (see Figs. 176 —
180). The sail, in form much
Flo. 176— Partof adamaeked ,., , .,
sword-blade. Boh. J. like our modem square-sail,
was usually made of wool,
/and sometimes had blue, red, and green stripes. Thi
number of oars was often very considerable, and the/
size of a ship-of-war was described by the number on
rowing benches. A " twenty-seat " for example, meand
a boat with twenty pairs of oars. The " Long Ser-\
pent," Olaf Trygvason's famed ship — the largest of\
the time in Norway — had thirty-four pairs of oars |
and nearly a thousand men; its keel was 144 feet |
long.' Knut the Great had a ship called "Pre
[» See Sea-Kingt, vol. ii., p 267.— Tr.]
[« lb., vol. i., pp. 456-458.— Tr.]
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THE IRON AGE.
f with as many aa aixty pairs.' Usually all tlie oars wcrcj
JD one row : bat Erling Skacke in Norway caused a sbipj
\ to be built in the tw elfth century with two banks of'j
joara, one over the otlicr.y As m the boitts of the Earllor/
[' Se6 SeaKingg, vol. ii., p. 243.— Tr.]
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184 ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVILISATION. [chap.
Ilron AgG the rudder was not directly in the stem. but(
I an the right side near the atom : aad hence this side Ul
I still called the sfa?4)Qard.\
The ships were generally painted and the gunwale
decorated with a row of shields, as we see on Figs. 177
and 180. The stem often ended in a gilded dragon's
head, and the stem was sometimes finished off in the
Fio. 177. — A Northman's ship from the eutl of the eleventh century, takea
from the BayeQX tapestt;.
form of a dragon's tail ; hence shipa-of-war were com-
monly called " dragons." We sometimes find that ships
had a dragon's head at both ends, or that the stem was
decorated with the gilded head of a man, or of an ox.
King Olaf the Saint had for the figure head of his ship
" Karl-hdfdi," himself carved a man's head (Fig. 177).
Erik Jarl had at the battle of Svolder, in the year
1000, a ship called "Beard," because the stem as far
down as the water was covered with iron plates, and
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III.] THE IRON AGE. 18B
above had a "beard " cOQsisting probably of iron spikes
sticking out.'
Before a sea-fight they used to bind the stems, where
the chief combatants stood, together, so that every line
of ships formed a continuous whole, and they conld fight
almost as though they were on land. When the ships
lay still, especially for the night, they were generally
protected by a sort of tent.
By a wonderful conjunction of favourable conditions,
we have two Northmen's ships preserved from the
Fia. 178.~An oak ship found in the barrow at Tone in South Norway.
Viking Period to our own day. In 1867 a large barrow
was opened at Tune, near Frederikstad, in the south
of Norway. A man was there found buried in his ship,
with his weapons and two horses. As the lower part
of the barrow consisted of blue clay, the greater part
of the ship was preserved almost uninjured {see Fig.
178). It is built nearly in the same fashion as that
found in the Nydam bog (see p. 115), and, like it, ia
pointed at both ends but, unlike it, had a mast.
[' See Sea-Kings, vol. i., pp. 473, 474.— Tr.]
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18C ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVILISATION. [chai-.
Another ship still better preserved was found in 1880,'
in a large barrow — itself too composed mainly of blue
■ clay — at Gokatad, near Sande^ord, in the south of
Norway (Figs. 179, 180). It is seventy-eight feet long,
is pointed at both ends, and has a mast and sixteen
pairs of oars. As we already observed, it was decorated
with shields, thirty-two on each side (see p. 184). In
a grave- chamber, just behind the mast, the dead chieftain
was buried with his weapons ; but his rest had been
FiQ. 17B.— Viking-ship aa/mxd at Gokatad, in South Norway.
soon disturbed by grave -plunderers. Together with him
were buried no less than twelve horses, six dogs, and
a peacock. Both these ships are now among the treasures
of the museum in Cbristiania.
f\il communications between the North and othef\
, I parts of Europe during the Viking Period were not \
I \ '"' 1 however of a hostile character. The peaceful enter-
I prises of commerce were engaged in with a vigour which_
f there has been only too much tendency to underratel
fThe position of Sweden especially, at a time when the
1 greater part of what are now its western coasts "
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lU.]
THE IRON AGE.
I to Denmark or Norway, restricted its commerce almosTh
entirely to the lands on the east and south coasts of
the Baltic. And yet we have abundant means of
proving that at this time the ancient Svithiod, as it|
I was called, bad ^Iso both peaceful and warlike relations!
Fig. ISO.— The GokaUd ship rettond.
f with tbe lands of Western Europe- and pspenii^ly thn ;
British Isles. |
lln Gestrikland, Upland, Vcstmanland. SodftnH""^'^"'^
Oster-Gdtland, and SmS.land there are a number of
runic stones, which were raised to the memory of men
who had travelled to England. Built up in the wall of
the church at Old Upsala, there is a runic stone whicli
" Sigvid traveller to England " had caused to be in-
scribed in memory of his father. Thus Sigvid, we see,
had the good fortune to return home from his travels.
But of others it Js expressly said that they died iiW
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AKCtENT SWEDISH CIVILISATION.
[chap.
I./..
oU
'England. At Kolstad, in the parish of Haggeby in;
Upland, there is a runic stone engraved by two sons in
memory of their father, who " remained in the AVest in
the thingalid," by which is probably meant the begin-
ning of a standing army in England, set on foot by
Knut the Great. Another runic stone, at Ros3a in
Smdland. was act up to the memory of one Gunnar who.
S^'aa "buried in a stone coffin at Bath in England."
1
lYe have further traces of the journeys made ior the
purpose of " plundering in the 'ft^ost" (vestcrviking),
and of commerce with England, in the number of Anglo-
Saxon coins of the tenth and eleventh centuries found
every yeai" buried in Sweden {Fig. 181).' It is possibly
true that the greater part of the coins struck by the
unfortunate King .^Ethelrsed, who died in 1016, were
originally extorted by vikings ; but this can hardly be
supposedto have been the case with the great quantities
of coins, found also in Sweden, which bear the names of
the Anglo-Danish kings Knut the Great and Hardaknut,
and were struck in England. Even the greater part of
jEthelraid's coins must have got by commerce to the
places where they are now found ; for they are com-
paratively very scarce in the western parts of Scandi'
navia, although the inhabitants of these took thel
greatest share in plundering expedirions to England,
whereas a surprisingly large number has been found
in tlic districts along the eastern coast of Sweden, and
especially Gotla nd.)
j Wc find a proof of English influence on Swedish]
' We have exact knowleiige of at least 25,000 Anglo Saxon coins
found in Sweden, all of Bilfer j to this we should add the great
mass of coina which n-e know to have been found there, especiall; in
earlier times, but the number of which is now unknown.
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m.]
THE IRON AGE.
%Sa.\Ts at this time in the fact that the eoina of OlafT.
Skotkonung (see Fig. 182), the earliest made in thej
wuntry, were struck exactly after the pattern of con-i
:;emporary English coins. Further than this, theyi
were struck by minters who had been sent for froni.
gpgland.'i
/a still weightier influence was that exercised by thef
/m any English missionaries who contributed so largely!
Ito the victory of Christianity in Swcclcn. f
f rhough we must not therefore overlook the ac tive
fcomnmnication wkich existed between ijwcclcn and tET
/m
west ot Jiurope, we can yet easily see that her closest
connexions were then, as many centuries after, with
countries ly ing to the east and south j
|0f this too the runic stones bear an eloquent test
mony. Many of them were raised to the memory ot
men, who travelled in "Eastway" {i.e., the lands bor-
dering on the Baltic). Others speak more definitely of
travels to Finland, Tavastland [now the central province
of Finland], Esthonia, Livonia, Semgallen (the east part of
Courland as far as the river Diina), and Holmg5rd (the
modem Novgorod). A lar^e number of runic stones.
^ On the back of the coin repreeented in Fig. 182 we road that
the minter was Qodwine, clearly an E!ng1i»h name.
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ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVILISATION.
\ ea
pland, Sodermanland, and Oater-Gotiand speak espeA'
cially of men who followed Ingvar on his joumev/
eaatwardgj _~
fMany runic stones tell ub of Swedes who set forth on\
(loDg iournevH to the east and south as- far as Greece. 1
where many of their countrymen entered service as
members of the emperor's body-guard {vdringar) at
Constantinople. The most remarkable of these runic in-
scriptions is one upon an ancient marble lion, which
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m.]
THE IRON AGE.
"during tlie ViJong feriod stood in the Firseus near"'
Athens, but was brought to Venice in the seventeenth
century (see Fig. 183). The chief part of the in-
scription is certainly illegible, but the form of the
terlacing ornaments proves it tn Tiavp hpcn fiii^_ljY_*
SwedcJ
|A. runic stone in the parish of Ytter-Sela in in^octerman-
Iland was raised by Bind to her husband Sven, who
" often sailed with costly ships to Semgallen round
Tumisnis." Tumisnis is the T^resent Dumesness. the
Fin. 1S4.— Arabic stive
•most northerly point of Courland , w^f^nre it begins to [
trend to the bay of Riga.f
' ■dam of Bremen in speaking of the famous trading-
a of Birka upon an island in the Malar Lake, during
town of Eirka upon an island in the Malar Lake, during
the last part of heathen times, relates that " Danes,
Northmen, Slavs, Sembers, and other Scythian peoples
used to travel thither in their ships. "j[
[The astonishing quantity of Arabian coins (FJg. 184
land silver orn aments from the east found in Swede]
point to commerce with eastern countries. More than
'^0,000 Arabian silver coins are known to have been
found i
.ninth ;
Swedish soil
ad tenth centuries.
most of the m were s truck in the
'i'he lar greater number.
^.
'^^y
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ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVILISATION.
means of exchange or payment waa gold or silver by
weight. Weights and scales of this period have also
been frequently found in Sweden. They were usually
made of bronze, and are almost exactly like those
now in use, with this difference, that the balance was
so constructed that it could be folded up into three
joints and put inside the two round cup-shaped scales
(Fig. 186). It was thus possible to carry them about
without any danger of breaking. The weights were
often made of iron covered with a thin plating of bronze
(Fig. 187). In this way any attempt to diminish the
weight by filing was easily detected. The silver de-
1 This coin was etrock for the Emperor Otto IIL, whose name is
inscribed between the anna of the croas. The back has his grand-
mother's and his guardian Athalhet's (or Adelheid's) names. The
coin was struck somewliere about 091 — 9LI5.
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THE mON AGE.
signed as a means of pajnnent was, like the gold so used
in earlier times (see p. 129), often drawn out into thin
Fio, 186, — Pair of scales made of bronze. Upl. J.
spirala.' The shape was convenient for handling, and
they could be easily broken oflF
into pieces of the size required.
In the National Museum there
are some spiral rings of this sort
which may be regarded as in a
certain sense " base coin," be-
cause they are made of copper
covered with a very thin plating fio. i87.-iron weight pUtod
of silver. They remind us of '''*" ''^""- '^""' 1-
' The uncoined gold uaed for merchandise at the present d^iy is
often made in similar spirals.
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ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVILISATION.
[CUAl-.
the gold ring which Kin g 0!af Tryggrason took from
the temple-door at Lade, and which he afterwards
gave as a great treasure to Queen Sigrid Storrada.
" All praised the ring," Snorri Sturlason relates ; " but
two brothers, who were the queen's smiths, took it and
weighed it in their hands, and then whispered to each
other. When the queen asked them why they did so,
they said that the ring was a cheat ; whereupon she
caused it to be broken asunder,
and they found copper inside." ^
For travelling in Sweden in
ancient times they used as far as
possible the many water-ways,
because the roads, if indeed there
were any, must have been still
very bad. After the introduction
of Christianity greater attention
was paid to them, as we see
among other things horn the
runic inscriptions, which speak of
bridges or roads made for the souls
of fathers, husbands, and sons by
their surviving relatives.
Upon a runic stone in Gotland
is the figure of a plain cart with four wheels ; and in
some Swedish and Danish barrows of the end of the
Iron Age not only were some bridles found together
with spurs and stirrups (Fig. 188), but also bits of
}iapn<.H« in some cases remarkably beautiful. They were
gilded bronze, and were tastefully decorated in
eculiar to the North.
t a style had now been produced which was in
[' See Sea-Kingt, vol. i p. 432.— Tr.]
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THE IRON AGE.
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100 ANCIENT SWEDISH CITIUSATTON. [uhap.
its origin due to an Irish influence, and which gradually
developed into the beautiful " animal-interlacings " 80
well known to us from the runic stones {Figs. 204, 205)
and the wooden churches of the earlier part of the
Middle Ages, Wo have beautiful examples of this
style of ornamentation in numbers of metal works be-
longing to the Viking Age found in Sweden, such as
ISO. — Bronze plate. Gotl. i
gold and silver ornaments, silver vessels, bronze buckles
(Fig. 189), shield-bosses, sword-hilts of gilded bronze,
bronze chapes of sword- sheaths, &c., &c.
In Gotland especially examples of this style have been
found in great abundance (see Figs. 190, 191). The
finds in this island belonging to the last few centuries
of heathendom are generally remarkable for the value of
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THE IRON AGE.
Fio. 192.— Bronze broocb. GoU. {.
Fia. 19S, — Brouze brooch, of the form oi an auimBl'a hcaj. (iull. ),
Fio. 194.— Back of Fig. 193, irjth a rnnic inscription.
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198 AKCIENT SWEDISH CIVIUSATION. [cuap.
th<iir contents, and for the fact that many of the anti-
quities are of peculiar kinds not occurring in other parts
of the North (Figs. 192—195). These grew out of
the types usual during the earlier part of the Iron Age,
the taste of an earlier time having here continued longer
than on the mainland ; just as at the present day the
Fig. les.— Two bTonn bncklca uniWd with chiini. Gotl. i uid 4-
old Swedish language is far better preserved in Gotland
than in most parts of Sweden.
The most popular temple of the ancient Swedes was
that at Old Upsala, surrounded by its murky grove and
its ancient barrows, of which the three great " kings'-
barrows" already described are the largest.' In this
teraple the images of Thor, Woden, and Frey were
placed.
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lu.] THE IRON AGE. 199
That the Northmen's artistic skill was during' the
heathen times actually employed in representing the
Asa-gods in human forms is also proved by Snorri
Sturlason's "Kings' Book." We there have described
to us how Olaf Tryggvason, when he wanted to com-
pel the Northmen to become Christians, went into a
temple near Throndhjem. " When the king came to
where the gods were, so it was that Thor sat there
the most honoured of all the gods, adorned with gold
Fia. lae.— Gold bracteatc. Gotl. i.
and silver. The king lifted up a gold-headed stick
which he had in his band, and struck Thor, so that he
fell down from off his pedestal. Thereupon the king's
men leapt up and threw all the gods down from their
pedestals."' And in St. Olaf's Saga we find the de-
scription of an image of Thor in a temple in the
Norwegian Upland. " In his hand he holds a hammer.
He is large of stature and hollow inside. Beneath him
is a pedestal, where he stands when he is brought out.
\} See Sta-Kingt, vol. i. p. 440.— Tr.]
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200 ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVILISATION. [cHiP.
He has DO lack of gold and silver upon him. Four cakos
of bread are given him every day besides meat." When
the image was broken in pieces, there came out " rats
as large as cat?, weasels, and serpents," which had
thriven upon the food given to the god.'
There were not always temple-buildings at the place
of sacrifice : often was it in the open air, in a sacred
grove, or by a holy well, that the Swedes of heathen
times celebrated their sacred rites.' Even if we pay no
attention to tradition, we can at the present day reckon
up a large number of places where the ancient Swedes
Faeri6ced to the Asa-gods. Such are the frequently
occurring place-names compounded with the words
Hof, Ilarg, or Vi.' Wo can often further see to which
god the place was consecrated. We have examples of
this in Odensvi in Vestmanland and in Sm&land,
Odcnsala in Upland, Thorsharg (now Thorshaila) in
Sodermanland, Thoralunda in Upland and in Oland
(see pp. 121, 122), FrOvi in Vestmanland, Frdtuna in
Upland, UUevi in Upland and in VestmaDland, and
others. The fact that so many of these now mark the
place of Christian churches is worth noticing, because
it shows that many parish churches in the country,
just as the first cathedral at Upsala, were built upon the
[' See See-Kingt, vol. ii., pp. 158— 160.— Tr.]
^ There is reaeoQ to regard as places of sacrifice many of what
are popularly koown as "judgment-rings" or "judgment-seats,"
which are circles formed of large stones. The unmber of stones in
such a circle is often nine. In the neighbonrhood of these stones
there are not imfrequently wells, some of which till quite recent
timeM have been " oSering- wells."
' Tlie word I/of in heathen tiroes corresponded very nearly with
what we chould now call " a temple," Ilarg to " an altar," and Vi
to "a sanctuary " or "holy place."
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HI.] THE IRON AGE. 201
sjimc places whieb during heathendom were already
devoted to sacred rites.
These place-names would be a further proof, if any
such were needed, that the ancient Swedes in the main
worshipped the game j^ods and had the same religion
as tiieir relations in Norway and Iceland.
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ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVILISATION.
("We alflo know that the heroic aonga of the Jidda
'^were not unknown in Sweden. This we see from the
remarkable figures which, together with runic inscrip-
tiouB, are carved upon the " Ramsundsberg " in Jader
parish {Fig. 197), and the " Goksten" in Hiirad parish,
both in West Sodcrmanland. These represent several
Fw. 1B8.— SUtst "Thort hammnr." O.-Giitl. \.
I scenes out of Sigurd Tafni's-bane's Saga, We here seel
1 the otter in the Andvara falls, and the smithy, tongs, 1
{hammer, and bellows belonging to the dwarf Begin. I
/ We see moreover bow Sigurd slays the terrible dr^^on
f Fafni and roasts his heart over a fire. "We have also I
\ here represented Sigurd's horse Grane laden v/ithj
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THE IRON AGE.
FafnTs hoard, and the two hawks sitting in a tree,
from whose conversation Sigurd leama the treachery
with which he is threatened by the cunning and re-
pcngeM Regin. Begin himself also, who was murdered I
an this account by Sigurd, is seen with hia head off.'J
We Jiave also traces of the heathen worship of the
ancient Swedes in the not uncommon, sometimeB richly
decorated, silver pendents which occur in finds of the
later Iron Age. These were doubtless intended to
represent Thor's hammer, and were worn in token of
the worship of Thor in the same way as the crucifix
is worn by Christians (Fig. 198).
Of the details of their religious belief, of education,
marriage, and other institutions connected with the
home-life in Sweden during heathen times we have no
particular knowledge, except so far as it can be
gathered by a comparison with what wc know of the
contemporary condition of Norway and Iceland, and
from the customs described in the most ancient laws
of Sweden. But as the latter in their present state
point directly only to the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries, and as, the contents of the Eddas and
Icelandic Sagas are fairly accessible, we have not
thought it worth while to dwell further on this
branch of our subject, enticing though it be. Besides,
the description it would involve would carry us far
beyond the limits proposed for our present work.
We can however through numerous finds get direct
evidence concerning the customs of burial in Sweden
during the Viking Period. These finds prove that the
[' For this legend see Corp. Bar., vol. i., pp. 31 and following,
and For a modem reproduction of it The Story qf Sigurd the YoUung,
by William Morrig.— Tr.]
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ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVILISATION.
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III.] THE IRON AGE. 206
dead were sometimes burnt and were sometimes in-
humed. Both these customs existed aide by side in
Sweden during the Later Iron Age, though in certain
tracts, as especially round the Malar lake, cremation
seems to have been the most usual practice.
If the cca^e was to be burnt, it was usually laid
fully-clad upon the pyre with weapons and ornaments ;
hence we usually find these much injured from the
effects of the fire (see p. 122). Not unfrequently horses,
dogs, falcons, or other pet animals,. possibly even thralls
also, were slain and laid by the side of their master
upon the pyre. The ashes and fragments of bone were
afterwards often deposited in an earthen vessel. The
graves were either covered by a barrow, or marked with
atones ranged in a circle or a triangle or in the form
of a ship pointed at both ends {Figs. 199 — 201).
The Sagas give ua many accounts of men who were
"set in barrows in their ships." We have abead^y
spoken of graves which bear out this description at
Ulltuna, Vendel, Tune, and Gokstad.
Out of an old Saga we get the following description
of King Harald Hildetand's burial; — "The day after
the battle of Brivalla, King Sigurd Ring bade them
find Harald's body, wipe off the blood, and lay it out
honourably after ancient custom. He bade them place
it on the chariot which Harald had used in the battle.
Then he bade them cast up a great barrow, and made
Harald drive into the barrow with the same horse
which he had used in the fight. After that was the
horse slain, and King Sigurd bade them take the saddle
in which he had ridden himself, and he gave it to
Kin g Harald, and bade him do whichever he pleased,
either ride to Valhalla or drive thither. Before the
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ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVIUSATION.
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la] THE IRON AGK 207
barrow was closed up. King Sigurd bade all mighty
men and warriors to cast in thither great rings and
good weapona to the honour of King Harald
Hildetand."
Although this account cannot be trusted in every
detail, yet it is of great im-
portance, because in the graves ■•
inside the barrows there have t •
often been found traces of horses, ' *
bridles, stirrups, and harness.
Unbumt bodies of this
period are often found lying in
stone or wooden coffins ; some-
times they arc found however
without any now visible traces
of any such protection. In
several barrows belonging to
this time, especially in Norway, '
there are chambers built of
wood, in which the corpses
were sometimes laid upon
stuffed cushions or sometimes
seated on chairs (see p. Iftl
and note). The moat remark-
able grave of this kiud yet
known in the North is that of 1 *
Queen Tbyra in one of the great & *
barrows at JcUingc in Jutland, * '
dating from about 950. The ^
grave-chamber is 2 1 ft. Gin, long,
8 ft. broad, and 4 ft. .^in. high, and is made of oak
trunks and boarded inside with planks of the same
wood. The walls had been hung with woollenstuffs.
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208 ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVILISATION. [chap.
To the memory of the dead they often raised what
are called " bauta-stones " (see Fig. 202); but only
where they have written upon them the name of their
departed friend has it been preserved to us. The names
were of course always written in runes. This method
of writing was certainly, as we have seen, known in
the North shortly after the beginning of the Christian
era ; but most of the runic inscriptions — of which
Fig. 202.— Darroiv willi " bauta-stouo " near Giideatud in Halland.
iu Upland alone there arc more than a thousand —
belong to the end of the Viking Period (Figs. 203—205).
It seems therefore as though it was only just at the
end of the Viking Period that the custom came into
general use of thus giving to themselves and their
friends a more permanent memorial than tradition alone
could give.
The writing of the Later Iron Age, or the " later
runes" as they are called, are very different from those
used during the preceding period. The later set of
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m.] THE IRON AGE. 2(W
runes, which however nearly agrees with the earlier
in the order of the letters, compriaea only the following
sixteen : —
f u Ih r h : h n i a s : t h I in -r
The rune X. is generally used, like Y of the earlier
runes, at the end of a word, and then corresponds to our
)■ ; but sometimes it occurs also in the middle of a word,
in which case it represents a vowel sound — usually y,
but occasionally e or ce. The runes J, +, +, tj , -f,
and Y. liave also the following forms: sj or \i=o,
Y = n, A=^, ' = s. 1 = ^j and 9 = w. After the end
of what were properly heathen times, especially, they
often used tlio symbols known aa " pointed runes,"
n==J/, Y=<l, \ = <^, '\ = <i, and ^ = p. In order to
spare apace they sometimes made one " stem " — as the
upright stroke was called — do for two runes ; thus, for
example, HR, -IK, uud others were combined to make
what are called " double runes."
The word "rune" seems properly to mean "secrecy,"
and it was long considered a wonderful secret how one
man could by such simple strokes communicate his
thoughts to another. From this it waa a natural step
to attribute to ninea a secret magic power ; and so we
have pretty frequent accounts of their use as charms.
Thus we read in the Fddii,' how Brynhild by the
following words taught Sigurd " Fafui's-bane" the
virtue of the runes —
" Victory- rancB " mu.'it thou know,
if thou wilt victory guia.
[' Corp. I'oet. Btyr., i., \^\\ 40, 41.— Tr.]
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ANCIENT SW"EDISH CIVILISATION.
Cut them on thy swoi'd-liilt.'
Others cut upon the blade
and twice oame Tyr.^
Storm-runes must thou cut,
if thou wilt guarded have
thy ship in the breaker's roar.
Cut them upon the stem
and eke the rudder's blade.
Thought-runes must thou kuow,
Wilt thou than others wi^er be.
Woden hath these runes,
Himself devised ....
The use of runes by slow degrees gave way to tlie
letters of the Latiu alphabet introduced with Christianity.
Yet many still preserved Christian grave-stones, fonts,
church-bells, thuribles, and other things with runic in-
scriptions show that their use long survived the final
establishment of the new religion. In certain out-of-the-
way districts they were still in memory after the Refor-
mation, and on the " runic staves," or ancient " club-
almanacs " runes were still cut only a hundred years ago.
During the Middle Ages whole books were actually
written with runes, as, for example, the stdl preserved
Laws of Skt\ne, dating from -the thirteenth century.
The runic stouc richly adorned with beautiful " animal-
interlacings" which is represented in Fig. 204 stands on
Viggby farm in the parish of LillkjTka in Upland. The
inscription, which begins in the middle of the bottom
row, reads in ordinary letters thus : Bruni lit risa auk
' At Gtlton, in the English county of Kent, they found a sword
with runes engraved on the hilt (qf. also p. 119). [Qilton is in the
parish of Ash near Sandwiuh — Tr.]
^ Tyr was the name of one of the Aga-gods, and also of the
rune f . »
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THE IRON AGE.
aristin^ thina tifiii- Kuth fast fathur Bruna auk
Aiiiuitir'' buaiita sin. In modem Swedish it would
Fio. 203.— Kunie-stone near Riik nhiirch in Oster-Golland.
' InKteiwl of arist{n) atin. Thoy avoided the repetition of the
same letters as much as possible. To ^uch an extent was tbi»
carried out tbat, if a word begau with the same nine or runes with
which the preceding word ended, the two words were joined to-
gether, and tho common runes only inscribed once. Sometimes a
nine was entirely Itft oiif, if the connexion of setise wan not thereby
lost. - Instc^id of ArniU H/)iii:
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212 ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVILISATION. [chap
be : Brune lat rem och rista sten denna efter Gudfast,
fader Brunes, och Amvi efter bonde {ie., make) sin, and
means " Brune caused this stone to be raised and en-
graved in memory of Gudfast, Brune 's father, and Arnvi
in memory of her husband."
In many cases we not only know the name of the
Fig. 20].— Banic-stone at Tiggby in Upland, 7 ft. high.
man who had the memorial raised, and of the person in
whose honour it was raised, but also that of the man
who engraved the runes and carved the often very
skilful and artistic interlacings. The best known of
these " rune masters," if we may call them so, are Ypper
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in.] THE IRON ACJE. 213
(the old form is Ubir), whose name appears upon Fig.
205 and some forty other mnic stones, Bale, Asmund
Kiresson, THorbjCm Skald, &c., who all worked in
Upland and the neighbouring diatricta.
Moat of the rune-carvers seem to have lived at a time
when the Asa-gods and the " White Christ " were con-
tending with each other for the mastery in Sweden.
Fig, 20C>.— Eucic-Btone near Vik in Uplanil.'
We cannot here describe the progress of this wonderful
contest, which only after many vicissitudes ended in the
victory of the new learning. So deep however was the
• The inacription OD Fi^. ^09 runs bs follows: Kiulakr lit raita
tlatn ^ir tun sin Inki/attauk Inkuar \h'\vk at brothvr tin. Tn Vbtr
[rtjtti runa. In modeTn Swedish : Gjvlai lat reea elen efftr son ein
Ingefasi, och Ingvar kogg &t broder sin. Men Ypper ristade runorna.
— " Gjiilak caused [this] stone to be raised to the memory of hia eon
Ingefast, and Icgvar set it up to his brother. But Ypper carved
the rnnes."
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214 ANCIENT SWEDISH CIVILISATION. [chap. m.
old faith rooted in the mind of the people, that even in
the present day, a thousand years after Christianity was
first preached in the country, many traces of the old
heathen superstitions survive. These perhaps may
shortly die out ; for they can hardly withstand the
light spread by a sound and universal education of the
people. But what we hope may never die out so long
as a free people is bom and bred in our land, is the love
of freedom, the power, and the heroism which distin-
guished the Northmen during heathen times, and the
pure purpose of life, which secured their religion a high
place among the pre-Christian religions, the wisdom
which does not make the chief business of life the
enjoyment of earthly pleasures, but seeks it in Valhalla,
in the Allfather's HaU.
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